After Before
by DevonWren
Summary: After Freya, and her unnatural return, how will it affect Merlin and Arthur's relationship - please give it a chance - sorry, i know, bad summary. Merlin/Arthur - Slash, Rated T for later Chapters.
1. Chapter 1

_**This is the opening chapter for a story that I haven't quite decided if I will continue or not, so feedback is much appreciated. **_

_**It's set after series 2, if you pretend that Morgana never got kidnapped, I didn't really know how to address that problem – I suppose I could just erase her from the story, but anyway, this is what I came up with...**_

_**Enjoy!**_

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Disclaimer: I own nothing...

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**After Before**

**Chapter One - Blue Fire**

She stood against that familiar water bowl with the same golden fire in her eyes. The clear liquid swirling in the grasp of the rock that upwards climbed from the stained silver floor. Pure water to the tongue, and touch, but not to the eye. Its colours changed, morphing into shapes - the shapes of people, and of flowers, and of fire.

_Always fire._

As if it drew upon the very essence of their destiny and shaped its self into their minds, folding around conscious thought and manipulating nerves to fear it. It would weave through the muscles that controlled you, without so much as moving, and intoxicate rationality. Until fire was your only choice. And the same people who would extinguish its magic, would, no doubt, call upon it when they needed it.

_When a body needed to be burnt._

So many things would finish with flames. This magic would never have come about without the flames, and the punishment for it, would be flames also. _But then again, Nimueh never got caught_.

The flames that brought about death would be the ones that made it certain that the dead would be summoned back to life. As life had been taken unnaturally, it would be brought back unnaturally. With callous and greed. Without thought.

The incantations slipped from her mouth as if she were breathing, each flowing word forming invisible stars in the water. And she could feel it. The power that these words were causing swarmed like flies, tight in the air around them. Like acid through her veins, she felt it move from her seething core to the cool tips of her fingers and the soft skin of her lips. This, she knew, was what bringing life should feel like. What bringing life where it should not exist should feel like. And she relished it. The slow numbness that slithered up her spine until the only senses she needed were her sight and her speech, she poured her completeness into the bowl, without flailing, she felt the energy leave her and she gasped. _She was capable - That made her feel like God._

There were no toads or rats or pointy hats when Nimueh cast her magic, no clichés that insulted everything that sorcerers stood for. Just her and the earth beneath her feet. The smooth rock that seemed to channel and reflect everything her mind had into the spell. And then back into her again, so when she nearly collapsed through lack of breath, it would tip itself back into her and she would carry on. Repeating herself until there was nothing left in the world that could undo what she was doing, nothing that could stop the air from filling the dissolved, charred lungs of her subject, or the fire forming those magnificent and defined shapes of her body. Nothing that would stop the life swimming into those invisible veins and pumping through the solid, stone heart.

Even when the magic was done, her eyes never broke contact with the water as it moved and splashed as if it were living. She didn't look around her as the icy chill blew through a small opening in the thick stone walls of the cave behind her, or as the shrill yell of a Raven pierced the thickening air. Nimueh breathed deeply, inhaling the stench that came with death as if it were pure oxygen.

Then, behind her, someone opened their eyes.

―

"Well, it is true that if you had listened to me in the first place, you would never have been delayed,"

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur snapped, deliberately quickening his pace so his manservant had a job to keep up, "Anyway, I don't know why you're looking so smug," he glanced back at the dark-haired boy, a smirk spread across his lips that was just _asking_ for trouble, "_you're_ the one who's going to end up in the stocks."

"What are you talking about?" Merlin stopped walking, staring incredulously at his master. The question, of course, was a waste of breath. He knew exactly what Arthur had been talking about.

"Well, in the end, it doesn't really matter what _I'm_ talking about. As long as _you _know what _you're_ talking about when spinning your excuse to my father, we'll be fine,"

"But that's not fair!" he protested, aware of how childlike he sounded, but quite content with trying his luck anyway,

"Oh, I_ know_, Merlin. It was simply _evil_ of you to drag me down that '_shortcut_'," he mimicked quotation marks in the air with two fingers on each hand, and then pushed hard on the Council chamber's heavy oak door. Winking as he did so, he couldn't suppress that strange unbidden feeling that rose in his chest when he saw Merlin angry or upset, but he would do his best to hide it.

Merlin sighed and put both hands by his shoulders in defeat, before being shoved into the presence of the King by an all-of-a-sudden-supposedly-angry Arthur.

"You're late." Uther announced, swishing his cloak out behind him - that, in its self, told everyone in the room that _he_ was in charge... _And that he was angry_.

"Yes, well," Merlin piped up and walked a step further into the room, gulping under the scolding eyes of the knights and other courtiers, "that would be my fault..."

―

"That went rather well," Arthur laughed as Merlin walked through the door, wiping the rotten apple, lettuce and carrot from his forehead,

"Open for debate,"

Arthur ignored the bitter comment and continued his jibes, "Seeing as you're no longer occupied, I have some jobs for you. And you can start with my stables,"

"Actually, I think Gaius said he had some things for me to sort out. I've done enough for you this morning," he spat, fighting the tears as if his life depended on it.

Arthur frowned and walked forwards, cautiously, but with an undeniable sense of power, "I don't think that's for you to decide,"

Merlin just shrugged. To be perfectly frank, he was more than a little bit miffed about having to take the blame - _again_. But as he turned to the door and went to leave, he had to pause as Arthur spoke again. That voice had that affect on him - when he heard it, he _had_ to listen. And he'd begun to think that it wasn't just Arthur's status that made it so.

"I want you back here when you're cleaned up. You can do the stables tomorrow, my armour needs a polish,"

Merlin left without turning around, therefore, leaving without seeing the concern and guilt on the prince's face. He thought he'd overdone it this time. True, if it were him in Merlin's shoes, he wouldn't stand for this treatment. But Merlin just... Took it. Time and time again, he wouldn't be surprised if _now_ was when Merlin snapped.

―

It was glorious.

'It' being the only appropriate word. 'She' would not have been accurate. This was no longer a girl, but a _thing_. A glorious, burning _thing_. Like blue fire, woven to take the form of a young girl, a _dead_ young girl. But, to stir the havoc Nimueh wanted to stir, one alive would just not do.

Twisting blue flames turned crisp around her arms, creasing at the elbow, and stretching as the girl awoke. Convulsing momentarily as they relaxed into their form, relaxed into the corpse they had been given. Her eyes flashed open, revealing a golden swimming mess of amber sap, so bright that Nimueh doubted anyone would be able to hold its gaze. Claw-like nails sprouted from her slender blue fingers, and, within her moving chest, a deep red stone sat and throbbed. _Her heart_. Of course. The thing that propelled her onwards. As Nimueh's mind would do to her.

The new life hovered above the sticky-wet cave floor, brown hair falling and floating like snakes around her small and delicate face. He didn't look like the girl she had once been - except those _eyes_. They told a different story. She hoped they would be remembered. For that one spark of a memory was all it would take to set her plan into action.

Although the Sapphire glow this girl was emitting gave her an explosion of joy, or power, and self-wonderment, Nimueh would have preferred her to look more _human_. But the laws of life and death had not allowed her to bring back the form, the person, so entirely. This being was fuelled by revenge, the desire to draw the blood of the one who drew hers and the need for the disgraceful downfall of anyone that stood between her and her prize. A prize that, Nimueh pondered, she had not proposed. The prize would have to be the death of her killer. Something that both women inevitably wanted. But for two completely different reasons.

Nimueh - because her life had been taken in a less direct sense, because she had been cast aside for something that had not been her fault, and because a mere young boy had stolen away her chances of being a part of Albion. His action had not been written.

And her creation - because she had been taken from the one she loved.

―

Morgana was always having premonitions, and Gaius no longer got as worried when he heard she'd had a nightmare. Of late, they had been frequently so trivial that none should really have cared.

But this was something different.

This went against his hopes; this went against his prayer that the darkness had passed.

_And his thoughts were with Merlin_,

"A girl," she'd started, and Gaius had sighed - it was always a girl, "rose from the lake."

He'd frozen now,

"A woman was there as well, someone I recognised, but cannot think from where."

It was the lake that had caught Gaius' attention; he knew the story far too well,

"Something happened, Gaius. The younger girl burned, and then she drowned, _I heard her heart explode as if it was inside my head_, but she is not dead... Not properly,"

He lead the King's ward over to a splintering wooden chair, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder in an attempt to calm her tears, and trying, in vain, to steady the irregularity of her short sharp breaths. "Morgana, tell me, this girl, what did she look like?"

"Well... Well, I don't know," she pleaded, leaning forwards across the table to look him dead in the eye, presenting Gaius with the full beauty of her tear-stained face. A chill crept up Morgana's spine as the face returned to the forefront of her mind, "she didn't look like she had, before she'd died. She was pale before, now she is made of blue fire, and her hair falls about her face as if it were submerged in water. And her _eyes,_ Gaius..." she whimpered, letting her head fall onto the table as she wept,

Gaius returned to patting her back, the only act of sympathy he felt confident enough to show, the fear taking over his mind like a blanket, making it hard to keep his eyes from rolling back into their sockets and his consciousness from evading him. He knew who this 'girl' was, and he knew who the woman had been. He knew what this meant,

"Arthur..." Morgana's head snapped up once more, and Gaius pretended he hadn't seen the flash of gold in her fright, "They always come for Arthur..." she trailed off, and collapsed, once more, into a fit of hysteria,

Gaius was left shell-shocked, unable to form a rational thought or plan. This was beyond his medical answers. This girl was _back from the dead_. He knew, as much as it pained him, this should be left to Merlin. He turned and looked towards the closed door that lead to the said boy's small room, keeping down the bile that raised in his throat as he thought of the pain this would put him in.

"Gaius, there's more," Morgana uttered, from under her splayed out hair,

Gaius shivered as she spoke, the words meaning not finding any reason and his heart leaping into his mouth,

"...It's not time, she was not ready..."

―

Merlin slept through the talking, submerged in dreams of idle banter with Arthur - dreams he'd been getting a lot recently.

But when he awoke, next morning, there was one word that was on his lips, one word that he needed to say before he could even think about getting up. As a frightful blue face had entered his subconscious, a face that he did not recognise, yet knew who it belonged to. The distorted features merely pretending to be her, pretending that they knew all of her. When really, he had seen, they only knew the pain, the anger, and the revenge.

A cry in the same shrill voice. A voice he remembered all too well, a voice he should never want to forget.

"Freya,"

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_**As always, please review – I really appreciate them - and tell me if you think I should continue,**_

_**Thanks x**_


	2. Chapter 2

Just a short chapter, but I've got a good idea of where this is going, so please bear with me even though the updates won't be particularly frequent,

_**Thanks for all the lovely reviews, as always, I really appreciate the support.**_

_**So, Chapter two:**_

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Chapter Two - Absence of Pain

Gaius eyed Merlin carefully from his seat across the table, the same wooden table where the most untimely news had been delivered the night before. The night when the moon had seemed that little bit dimmer, highlighting that gleam of salty tears that had distorted the King's wards pale and beautiful face. Gaius had known that those tears would not have been the last shed under that dead girl's name, nor had they been the first. He had been right, as if any other scenario had been worth the consideration. For the raven-haired boy, shaking and hysterical with reminiscence, sat opposite him now, crying more than anyone need ever seen him cry. The story had drawn more tears than Gaius had cared to count, and more grief than Gaius had a remedy to subside.

Time was the only medicine he had to offer, and all he could hope to give. That, _maybe_, after this morning, Merlin would be able to contain the sadness that scarred his angelic face, and convince Arthur that this _monster_ was just another of many. That this was _not_ Freya. That she meant _nothing_ to him. This, of course, Gaius knew was untrue.

But those trickles, like snow-swirling rain, that traced the contours of Merlin's smoothly carved face, made him _need _to hope. For _this_, should he remain in this state, could be his death.

Merlin was begging himself to cease the crying, to force the tears back into his eyes in the hope that they would wash her memory from his brain. But, really, that was not what he wanted. He wanted to remember her until the day he died, and for years after that. She had understood him, the way no one else would. The way not even Gaius could hope to.

But she was gone.

And he had to keep telling himself that, press what he knew of her into only his subconscious.

Because this beast_ had to die._

―

Arthur had been tapping his foot impatiently for approximately half an hour. _Merlin had still not turned up_. He thought the concept of keeping to a tight schedule had, once again, evaded his manservant, leaving him without the capacity to 'hurry'. But then, he hadn't been expecting the red-faced, sorrow-stricken boy that ambled through the door nought but fifteen seconds after his foot had stopped tapping. And now he saw it, he couldn't summon the anger; he'd originally been ready to overflow with, for the life of him. Instead, he was desperately fighting the urge to offer a... Well, to offer a _hug_. "Merlin?" He started, some strange cowardly part of him hoping that he had been mistaken, and that this was not, in fact, Merlin, but a stray servant.

But the sniffle that replied and the sultry palm that was wiped across steamed eyes, told him the worst. "Arthur," he simply said, his voice cracking like fractured stone, and the sound of it echoing through Arthur's head as if reflected by diamond encrusted walls - from every possible direction, in every possible frequency. One name, said in such a pained way. Like daggers.

"Merlin, what's wrong?" he stepped forwards just as Merlin rounded him - obviously preparing to straighten the mess of red and purple sheets on his masters bed - but then stepped almost immediately back, realising his place.

Merlin just shrugged in reply. Not acknowledging the fact that his whole body ached for physical contact, _for a hug_. Especially from Arthur. Although, he wouldn't really like to admit it. As if Arthur would return the notion. The vulnerability it required, Arthur didn't have. At least not where everyone could see it.

"Look, I know I'm a Prince, so we can't really be friends," he started, trying desperately to lift that boyish grin he was dearly missing onto his manservant's face, "but, I'd like to think, that, if I wasn't a Prince, we'd probably get on," he took a step towards Merlin, who was tentatively smoothing down bed sheets, "so, I'm asking as a friend, what's wrong?"

"Yes, and if you weren't a Prince, I'd tell you to mind your own damn business."

_Well, that's that then._ Arthur was about to resign, when he saw Merlin's shoulders begin to shake. He feared the worst, and felt it tug at his heart and pull it down into his stomach.

The last time Merlin had seen Arthur move so fast was after Merlin had drank the poison from Bayard's cup - which could potentially have led to his death -and considering the difference in triviality, he couldn't help but be surprised. Even more so when he felt the comforting pressure of a hand on his shoulder. "Arthur?" he careened his neck so he could see the long slender fingers better, furrowing his eyebrows to show his confusion, but Arthur didn't remove them. Only pressed harder, shooting adrenaline through his veins.

"Oh..." he muttered, "I thought you were crying again,"

Merlin laughed harder, his shoulders shaking violently, after seeing Arthur blush. Such a beautiful, feminine shade of pink for someone so... _Masculine_, although the word made Merlin squirm. "No, don't worry, I wouldn't put you through that... You've got _enough on your plate_, what with giving orders all the time," he sniggered, relieved that he'd found some distraction, "I really don't know how you cope."

"Watch it, you. If you value your head at all, you'll be careful how far you take your so-called '_wit'_,"

Merlin imitated zipping his mouth closed, but then changed his mind and unzipped it, "I'll bear that in mind, although, it's nice to hear you notice my attempts,"

Arthur chuckled, but was overwhelmed by a drowning sense of remorse, slipping his smirk from his face as he half-smacked his lips, "I was worried that you were upset because I got you put in the stocks yesterday,"

Merlin gulped, _his_ smile, too, vanishing as quick as Arthur's. He didn't know how to reply to _that_. Sure, he had been slightly upset about that, but... On the scale of things, regarding the news of this morning, he hardly thought yesterday's occurrence noteworthy. "No, forget about that," he said solemnly, Freya bursting into his mind and seizing the control he'd just spent the last two minutes resiliently grasping for.

"Merlin," that hand rose to his shoulder again, "I _will_ listen."  
'_Ahh...'_ Arthur's head was melting with heat. _Did he actually just say that?_ That was practically a confession in itself. How stupid could he have been? The hand fell back down to his side, before twitching and rising to stroke the golden locks that hung about his face. _Geez. _

But when he had managed to force his eyes to meet the captivating blue of Merlin's once more, he found no mocking, no wicked sarcasm, and no confusion. Only the forgiving, appreciative gaze that he so often found there. The refreshing look that would draw Arthur to his senses, and equally draw him into uncertainty, self-loathing, and an unbidden feeling of... _Something else._

"Thank you,"

That was the thing with Merlin, or, moreover, _one_ of the things with Merlin, he was always able to defy popular belief, expected reactions and degrees of appropriateness, and form his own, perfectly accepted (if only by Arthur) form of _being_. One that, Arthur thought, everyone should adopt. Image how peaceful things would be, if you discount the constant back-chat and irritating smart-arse tendencies... But then, for everyone to be like Merlin would take away how special he was...

Arthur knew - he shouldn't be feeling or thinking this way. _As if he could help it_. Just look at those _ears_.

And those eyes kept staring at him, with such serenity.

_That was when they heard the knock... that signalled the fire... that brought about the deaths... that caused the search... which, of course, lead to the findings..._

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_**Thank you, thank you, thank you (x 1,000,000) for reading, **_

_**Please review, it would make my day...**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Well, chapter three – it's a big one, in as much that it's quite... horrible. But I kind of need this story to be horrible. Otherwise it won't really work... so I'm sort of half sorry.**_

_**Thank you for all the lovely reviews again, and I hope this chapter delivers as much as you would like.**_

_**Oh, and I don't know if someone called m4Waverley will be reading this, but, I just wanted to thank them for the amazing review on 'Merlin, I don't like Jam...' I really didn't know how else to do it seeing as they don't have an account. So thank you!**_

_**Anyway... I hope you like this...:**_

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Chapter Three - The Fire

Everything froze when he saw her. His breath fled from his lungs as though someone had tightened strong ropes around his chest, and his eyelids fought to stay open. He just wanted... He just_ needed_ to sleep, and to remember what had been, and hope the memory alone could erase the present. So he could live in the past. The air grew stagnant around his head, the breeze faltering and stealing the movement of sound, the pressure squeezed so hard he thought he would disappear - vanish into the oblivion that was quickly engulfing that ache in the centre of his heart.

Her delicate frame was rough and changing as she hovered, steel eyes bringing boiling blood to the surface of his flesh, as if sucking through every pore. And his fingers, for a moment, were retracing the outline of her skin - but if he held her _this time_, he would get burnt.

Beside him, amber gas ate away at the walls. Burning without wood for fuel, but with stone. Exposing the fabrics lay over beds and across windows and swallowing them as reward - something colourful after the grey. And it swam like water down the crevices of the stone-slab ground, stretching its gleaming fingers to meet those who were not fast enough to run - dragging them down with it, hungrily tasting the flesh off their bones. Turrets were alight like torches, and it scorched the battlements, trapping everyone inside the freshly ignited stove. White-hot conflagration formed canopies over-head, concealing the stars behind a mesh of opaque shadow, starving the courtyard of oxygen and filling the air thick with smoke that stung and dried eyes. He sprinted over to commoners, and knights alike, desperately trying to help. Wiping the soot from their faces and dabbing their brows with wet cloth, secretly hiding the enchantments that aimed to clear their vision and ease their breathing. _If he could just keep them alive._

A few feet away from where he was knelt, beside a quickly-asphyxiating old man, Arthur was yelling at his knights, "_Find the children, take them away from here!_"

'_It's only a matter of time,_' Merlin was thinking - only a matter of time before everyone would be dead. Because, he knew, that without him there would be no one powerful enough to stop her... And he also knew - _he would never be able to kill her_. Not Freya. Not ever. Not as he remembered the cool of her hand in his hand, or the softness of her hair as it fell in russet tresses onto his neck- when she slept with her head on his shoulder. Not when he thought about how she'd listened, with no prejudice or ire, but with careful and refined intent. She'd known his pain, because she'd felt it herself - only worse.

But Arthur would try - because that is what Arthur did. In the end, he would say it all came down to '_his duty to Camelot_'. But he was just trying to hide the fact that he genuinely cared, and would stop at nothing to ensure that _his_ people were safe. He would sacrifice his life for each and every one of them a million times over. And Merlin knew he wasn't the only one who saw that.

The Prince was stubborn enough that, should he value his life above those of the peasants, he would remain indoors, away from the fire and destruction - yet, here he was. Fighting to the death with an indestructible enemy. Merlin's heart swelled with compassion, but burst as he realised - _indestructible..._

That one other person, whom he was sure, understood Arthur's endeavour, was running across the courtyard. Her soft yellow slippers making no sound as they hit the cobbles, over the roar of the fire that tore from castle corner to castle corner. And she turned as the flames reached for her dress, and licked at the hem. And her eyes locked with Merlin's for less than a second before they searched for the Prince. Her gaze did not rest there for long. Not as she saw flames arise from the ground and cover his body as he leapt from their grasp, or as the fight in him was extinguishing along with his energy. He grew tired. But she turned and ran. She knew she could not help him. And Merlin saw it. The expression on her face that told him - she didn't care as much as Arthur had for her. She needed to survive for_ Lancelot_, not for Arthur.

He was already dead to her - there was nothing she could do to save him.

Seething, an uncontrollable hate for his friend swarmed in his throat. _She was just going to leave him there... To die... And do nothing. She'd never loved him with the same intensity he'd loved her_. (Merlin could only pray for past-tense) Merlin would ensure that that decision brought her nothing but regret, stealing inside her mind until it finally sunk in - she would never be allowed to have him - he would make sure Arthur lived, just so he could see the shame in her eyes and hear the remorse in her voice. So the painful reality became clear in her mind and drove her mad with its bitter taste - there would always be those who cared for Arthur more than she did, and those were the people who _deserved_ him - _she did not._

She didn't love him, not as Merlin was beginning to realise he, himself, did. _But Arthur had cared for her?!_

His magic sent her flying, crashing into the stone pillar until blood ran from her calf. He saw the fear in her eyes as she struggled for her footing, as she saw the fire reaching towards her... _and was glad_. Shrieking, she fled to the Council Chambers - seeking her refuge, whilst she left her _one hope_ to die.

Merlin would make sure Arthur never thought 'Love' and 'Gwen' in a three word sentence ever again.

His head spun around, letting him take in the reality of the situation, the children running for the drawbridge, fire chasing them with an attempt to peel the flesh from their thin bones. And Arthur was still struggling, tossing his sword aside and clasping his shield in front of him. No attack left in him, as the steel penetrated nothing more than the dispersible air, assuming the defensive. Merlin's power was useless; anything he could send her way would simply fall straight through her or succumb to the pile of ash beneath her weight-less feet... _But there is always a way_ - and water found its way, easily, to his palms as he drained the underwater well.

Sending pulses of towering walls of water to collapse over her burning figure, made her melt away. Only to reform seconds later. After disintegrating like particles of sand, she would scatter across the floor, left with half a face, or half a hand, only to let her magic piece her together again. Merlin hadn't noticed the confused, fearful, but somewhat admiring gaze that was now resting on him, as he summoned another liquid force using the colourless power that streamed from his fingertips -so natural, he needed no words.

But Arthur's eyes were torn. The questions he needed time to ask would have to wait - what he had just _seen_ would have to wait. A fourth wall of their depleting water supply gave him long enough to dart out of the way, following the instruction he knew Merlin's mind was yelling, rolling so he was hidden by a sodden wooden cart.

A shivering, chattering sound beside him caught his attention and he twisted to see a boy. No older than eight. He was huddled against one of the carts large wheels, praying that he would not be found, and the terror in his eyes ran slender fingers of cold down Arthur's spine. That small and vulnerable figure sparked recognition in Arthur's mind - someone he knew well - the vast area that the ears covered about his child-like face, and the blue of his forgiving eyes, and the way his hair fell over his forehead with a sense of organised chaos. And the slim, fragile bone-structure - as if he _needed _to be protected. The slender frame that Arthur knew his hands could easily shield. _This boy needed to be saved - if only because he reminded him so very much of Merlin. If he could do nothing to save his Warlock, he would save this boy._

But away from him, several metres behind the child's hunched-over back, Gawain was fighting with fire - cornered by flames that crept up the castle walls, burning without fuel and threatening to swallow him whole any second. The water, he knew he could use, put out the fire long enough that his friend could run for cover. He knew he could only save one of them. He had a choice to make.

Gawain or the child.

Gawain was his _friend_ - but this was _a child_.

_Where was Merlin?_ He needed him now - as he always seemed to - he would know what to do. But he couldn't see him past the wood that obscured most of his failing, contracting and pulsating vision. He didn't consider his options again, _he would have both - he was Arthur Pendragon, he _always_ had both -_ grabbing the child around the chest, he sprinted towards the drawbridge tucking the boy roughly under his arm. He seized the pail of water, he'd seen Gwen put down minutes before, and threw it over part of the fire surrounding Gawain. It made little difference but he yelled '_Jump!_' all the same. An instruction his knight followed, _just taking orders - he'd given up, but he owed Arthur the effort - _but the fire plucked him from the air, with the strength of something living, and pulled him back. _It was too late_. But Arthur had never stopped running, even as he'd tried to save his friends life, even as he realised he'd failed. _The dark-haired child needed to live._ He cursed his own inefficiency, the only way he felt anywhere close to being capable of saving Merlin... The one he... Was to save a child! Who practically leapt from his arms and ran in the direction he'd seen the other children run. And Arthur stopped to see him go, hands running through his hair, wet with sweat, water and blood.

He stopped for too long.

Blunt force hit him hard in the small of his back, coercing him to his knees. He scrambled around, trying to face his attacker. _One guess would have lead him to the truth._ Furthermore, she floated over him; with a wicked smile splitting her cheeks that was so ridden with madness he could only see it briefly. The insanity was too much to bear. And the thirst for blood and the hunger for revenge. Revenge, he thought, she would be getting any second now. The death gathering at her fingertips.

But, as Arthur was coming to realise there always was, there was someone behind her - someone who'd managed to gather the energy to _still fight_. And he was sending water from his palms into the deep-set red stone that throbbed in the centre of her minion form. _Merlin was still trying_. He was using magic._ But for once, Arthur was glad to see the consequences of power_. As the blue monster withered above him, fighting to re-grow but withering further, he thanked the old religion. Something his father would have had his head for.

Merlin dived through the disparity beneath her, and collected to his feet so he stood between the hunter and her pray. Between the two people in the world that he thought he loved the most. Between the one he had lost and the one he was losing... _between the one he'd chosen and the one he was choosing._

Merlin knew his magic could only hold for so long - until Arthur had run. And then he would give in, let it ripple from his fingers and let her take it in, let it push at the inside of her invisible skin until she couldn't contain it. Until it pulled her apart. And in a fit of last-breath revenge, she would smother him in her fiery hands.

At least, that is what _should_ have happened. But two problems were preventing fate from being carried through. First, as he was looking at her, as the fire began to regain control, and he knew that with every part of her that brought itself back into his vision, the more the truth that killing _her_ was not an option pressed itself to the forefront of his mind. And then, whenever he screamed '_Run!_' to the man behind him, he never heard the scrabble of footsteps as they fled, but instead -

_"I'm not leaving you!_"

Merlin had needed those words so many times before, but without the urgency and the pain. And only now, when they were the words he hated with everything he had, were they spoken. _"_You'll die," he said back, hoping that death was still something his arrogant prince didn't enjoy the prospect of,

"So will you." Was all that came in return. And Merlin couldn't deny it.

"Arthur, you have to leave this to me, you _can't_ defeat her!" he yelled, sending another jet of ice-cold water at his half-dead love,

"Merlin, I could conquer the world with one hand, as long as you were holding the other,"

Merlin's breath hitched, and the crying started.

But something in those tears made the ghost pause - something she couldn't yet understand, but something she couldn't just ignore. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth gaping slightly as she saw the emotion raw in a face she knew she knew. That near-ebony hair, and the piercing blue of his eyes, and the way his ears reached from adjacent to his brow to adjacent to his lips - she recognised those too. The image of a boy she had known before seeped into her memory, the finer details filtering through, but the important ones were too large for her narrowed mind to realise.

"Why has she stopped?"

Merlin knew why, and so he let the tears fall without trying to hide them. He did not cry reluctantly in front of Arthur, as he would usually have done, instead, he let them pour from his eyes. As they had by the lake, only now the water did not stream into water but fire. As they had when he'd said 'Goodbye' to her, as he'd thought it would be the last time. He let the thought of having to do it again suffocate his senses, and how he was being tortured by grief and despair and... And _tests - it was as if everyone was always testing him_.

Freya remembered that day, and how she had been thankful - she remembered he deserved her thanks. But behind him, gradually clambering to his feet and positioning himself behind this boy's right shoulder was the man she wanted to kill. The man who had killed her. _Why would he be protecting this murderer?_ She tilted her head, her torn loyalties rifled within her. Her indescribable need for the dark-haired boy was strangling, but the need for bloodshed -_ for blood to fall from the Prince's heart_, was the force that had driven her back to life. And it was the force that drove her now - She couldn't tell why, but she did know this decision was not one she would have made that day by the lake.

So she closed in. Backing her prey into a corner, sweeping Merlin along with him. He was in her way - _that would not do_.

Merlin's hands rose, once again, to shield Arthur from the force he could feel building inside her. The way he would hear the dragon's voice inside his head. And words spewed from his mouth, words he'd skimmed over in his nights of cramming knowledge he'd hoped he'd never have to use, ones that had never really sunk in, but now he knew them as if they were perfect niceties. Now he could surround her with enchantments and hope that they would hold.

But her arm extended out to him, so close he could feel the heat on his cheek as it dispersed the flesh and skin. Her lips parted and she spoke, three words. Not the three words he had wanted her to say, _so badly_ wanted her to say to _him_. But ones that had the opposite effect.

As she pushed them smaller into the corner, using their vulnerability to choke them with the gas from fires and the stink of the singed dead, she said,

"He _will_ die_._" And raised a palm.

_**Please review and tell me what you think.**_

_**Thanks.**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**I've been a bit longer to update this time, but I needed to get this chapter as good as I, personally, could. I really hope it paid off, 'cos otherwise I could just look like an idiot. Oh, and, as with most of my other chapters, it needs to be read slowly. **_

_**I don't know if anyone's realised, but the last line in Chapter Two has determined the names of the next four Chapters – not that I've uploaded all of them yet.**_

_**Anyway...**_

_**Thank you for all the amazing reviews – all of you are so lovely, it's insane!**_

_**Anyway, enjoy, and thanks to Florence & the Machine for one of the lines – that it possibly the best album in the world. Loads of inspiration on there for future stories.**_

_**Thanks.**_

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Chapter Four - The Deaths

Strangely, this was _exactly _how Merlin had wanted Arthur to find out about his magic - through a heroic gesture that aimed to preserve their lives, more specifically, _Arthur's life_. But now, when it was _happening_, he wished he'd never had to deal with the prospect. He wished he'd grown up like everyone else, like everyone else who _didn't_ have magic, and that it wasn't up to him to protect Arthur...

He mentally sighed... _As if he could just _give_ Arthur up_ - they had been through too much for him to just _wish_ it undone. He wouldn't take a different path, even if he'd been given the choice.

_Maybe,_ what he meant was that he wished magic had never existed to threaten Arthur's life in the first place... But then, they would never have met - without the **magic** Merlin used to fend off the** magic** Mary Collins had used because her son was executed for using **magic**... And Merlin would never have been sent to Camelot by his mother... He'd still be a farm boy working in Ealdor. _Sure, that seemed a good option now, when death was pressing firm fingers to his cheekbones, and claiming that it would soon destroy the person he found himself falling in love with more with every passing second. But did he honestly want that? Did he honestly want to be without Arthur?_

No. It had never really been a question - at least, not one he needed to consider.

This was now. And he and his master were so very close to death - and he was considering alternative realities? A perfect, easy life would have left him empty and void of purpose. With Arthur - he knew he _needed _to be alive, if only to preserve the life of someone else - that was the most meaning anyone could expect from life. _Someone else._ He would willingly live in the darkest corners of Arthur's shadow if it meant he could push him further into the light.

"_Arthur,_" he muttered, as if the name itself was an enchantment, one that could banish the death and flames and evil and free them from this unjust end. And he savoured the word, very much understanding that it, before hopeless enchantments, would probably be the last word he ever spoke. The dragon had spoken of Arthur being King, with Merlin at his side. But how things stood now, that was a far-flung future. They would die at each other's sides - and Arthur would never know how much he was loved by him. The untimely awakening of Freya... Or more accurately, this _beast_ was surely not recognised as 'within the laws of _fate'_. So why shouldn't she kill them now? Bend the future that she had been coarsely snatched from?

Because... Because... _Merlin was willing to fight_. Until the inevitable end.

He closed his eyes, praying that, without the girl in his sight, he would be able to consider her as nothing more than the beast she had become.

He coolly whispered - hiding the tremor in his voice as if it would threatened to distort the power of the words themselves - enticing the air to tighten around the spirit's form, trapping her within a solid, invisible bubble that none of her flames could penetrate. Then, with all his dwindling might, he crushed further, feeling the outline of her, the shape as it pressed defiantly back against his shaking hands. But he forced the heat to burn its creator. He compressed with all of the magic he owned, until there should be nothing left to give. But it was like peeling back layers, he expired one, and then moved onto another, stronger than the first and with more energy - his eyes flew open as he felt it tear something inside him, letting out a heat greater than anything he'd suffered under Freya's hand. With the fresh, soft layers of taught power he felt his heart quicken, trying to keep up with the unbearable exertion of life. The adrenaline convulsing his chest faster than he was breathing, his mouth opening in a facade of near madness _- but he held it back, refusing to let this insanity overwhelm him. He was not what this magic was enticing him to be... _His sight burned orange and he heard and felt nothing. Merely watching as the shrinking, tiring ghost's arms flashed with flesh, and the floating tresses about her head relaxed - only to try to burn again.

The shriek that left her chapped lips was nothing human; the call of a Raven was the most comparable. Splitting the air and smoke and sucking it into her mouth, smothering any words she'd been about to say. Claiming Merlin's victory. But Merlin hadn't heard the scream, blinded and deafened and made numb by this new lease of frantic life - This new lease of life, he wanted to give, _so entirely_, to Arthur. So that he would pass it on time and time again until he'd spent it all on the Prince. On _his _Prince. The only one he would ever do this for, the only one who, he knew, would play-down the gesture. The only one who he would let get away with undermining him in such away - _because he loved him_. The thought was driving him back to that madness that adrenaline had thrust upon him, and as before, he choked it back. He needed to concentrate - for Arthur. _He needed to concentrate on weakening Freya..._he gulped.

_No more dreaming of the dead, as if death itself was undone..._

Arthur watched in awe, slowly becoming less aware of himself, distracted from the imminent death and bringing marvelling at how natural this colourful but darkening deed seemed to be for his servant to the place of up-most importance. He'd regarded his manservant with wonder of this degree_ so many_ times before, but now he knew his reason. Before, it had been more a celebration of the creatures that Merlin so often let loose to fly in his stomach - with one mere innocent look. Although, now, the expression on Merlin's face was so indifferent, he began to wonder if Merlin had sacrificed his conscience.

"Merlin?"

The boy blinked, something inside him heard that word - even through his oblivion - and something inside him heard the confusion, the interest, the admiration... And _the fear_.

The flow stopped within Merlin's veins, drying and healing so the paranormal scars disappeared, leaving only the ache that came with trapping something that, so desperately wanted to get out. The layers covering and curing themselves as he drew the streams of energy back in. Watching the fire grow once more before him, but this time she wore an expression he couldn't quite place. He thought she would say something... But no... Just - he shivered at the sound - she just laughed. Realising for herself how weak Arthur made him. How, without Arthur there, he would have finished her... But one word had brought him back to the shy... _coward_ she'd once..._ Fallen in love with_...

But she knew she was better than that now. She was too powerful to retire back into _old_ ways...

Merlin watched, realising that _this_ Freya didn't _understand_ him like the old one. As she muttered the word '_Coward'_ under her stuttered and unnatural breath, her body rose, arching into the night sky, dispersing into waves of blue gas.

Merlin slumped to the ground, knees catching on stones that scratched his flesh, succumbing to the teasing fire. And a part of his head opened as he looked around, and it swallowed and drowned the remaining flames. He didn't need any words. He didn't need to even think. Something inside him was rectifying some of the damage, ceasing the burning and clearing the smoke.

But he had no energy to appreciate it. And no will to see it. Once again, left numb and empty by his foolish conclusions.

He should never have stopped. He _should never have stopped killing her_..!

She wouldn't give up.

The sultry hand that placed itself on his shoulder reminded him of this. That hand belonged to the reason that revenge was needed, and that hand was the reason for all of this... _He should be angry..._ But he wasn't, well, not with Arthur. With himself, for not killing the ghost that was pretending to be Freya while he still had the chance.

Now that chance was gone, and she would be back - with knowledge of his power, _his newly found power_, and with plans to use it against him. Nimueh's mind was a thousand times greater than his... He knew as much.

―

"I'm glad you chose to use it when you did, Merlin." Arthur muttered, his back facing the boy who had, but hours before, saved his life. Out of the window, Arthur's eyes were playing tricks on him. The remnants of the fire etched onto his eyeballs, tracing lines of white across the horizon - lines, he thought were echoes of that same blue gas.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Merlin retorted, falling back into his familiar ways of denial. Hoping that this time... _That this time_... He truthfully didn't know what he was hoping. Perhaps that it would all just _piss off and leave him alone_. Momentarily, Arthur as well.

"Yes, you do," the prince sighed, forcing his eyes to look at his manservant, and his fumbling, shaking hands as they tried to scrape the mud and wet congealing ash off of his boots. He was just picking, his mind obviously everywhere but there. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"How could I, Arthur?! How could I _possibly _tell you?! All of those times when I've witnessed people _die_ because they are like me, all of the times when I've thought you'd understand, only to hear you tell me the opposite, only to hear you agree with your father!" He looked up, hands pulling at his ebony hair and tears falling from his eyes in a useless attempt to calm him, "You think I could have _trusted_ you with something like _that_?!"

Arthur didn't answer.

"_No_. No, I couldn't have." He fell to his knees in defeat, only to be hoisted back up again by firm and authoritative hands.

"Merlin..." he murmured, putting a hand under the sobbing boy's salty chin, "look at me."

He did as he was bid, although, his head was begging him to do otherwise. Arthur was his motivation, for everything, and always had been - but he was _always _the reason for the problems, for the deaths. For _his_ problems, and probably_ his_ death.

"Have you used... Have you used your magic before -" he blinked back his tears, determined not to let Merlin know how hurt he was at his lack of trust - he understood how Merlin must be feeling,_ must_ have _been_ feeling for _all_ of this time, " - with me around?"

Merlin remained still, his eyes locked with Arthur's and he was unable breathe. _He should be angry - he'd told himself that already, he should be angry with Arthur - so why did he feel nothing but an uncontainable sense of relief that he was still alive, and uncontainable sense of... Love_?

"Have you?! Answer me, goddamn it!" He shook the thinner boy's shoulders - disregarding how fragile the jutting shoulder blades made Merlin under his careless hands - although he already knew the answer.

Merlin ducked his head towards his chest and sobbed, the vision tearing at Arthur like claws,

The prince crushed him to his chest, _how could he be so ignorant? How could he, so many times, have missed the obvious? How could he have not seen - Merlin had always been there, always ensured he lived? Because he was blind. Too wrapped up in himself to see others, too overcome by his father, by what he thought he _needed _to _be_ and_ needed _to_ do,_ to realise that _Merlin,_ the insufferable _Merlin_, had been his one and only constant. He hated himself for the pain he'd inflicted on the young boy, and would sacrifice nigh-on anything to right this almighty wrong..._

"I suppose this is it, then?" Merlin choked, ready to run. But also ready to let himself die - knowing that he had served Arthur well, protected him from so much up until now_ -_ knowing that he had given Arthur so much more than he had ever been capable of, and _that_ was why it was _now_ he had to die. Before he could ruin it all.

"What?" Arthur pulled him away from his chest to look at the red and eerily calm eyes.

"It is your duty to give me up," he whimpered, the tremble betraying the complacency of his expression,

"That may be, but there is _no way_, _regardless of what my father may do,_ that I would _ever_ turn you in." he exhaled heavily, cupping Merlin's sticky cheek with his palm and forcing their eyes to meet again, "even _before_ today... There's nothing that would have made me do such a thing!" he cradled the boy once more to his chest, sighing at the way the crying had stopped so suddenly. _How could Merlin have thought he'd...? Thought he'd _kill_ him?! Because of his father... "Don't you ever think it."_

Dark pulses of blood quickened through Merlin's veins, and he could feel it pressurise his ribs and throat - but he relished the sickened feeling in his head, _it meant he was alive._ It meant Arthur had chosen to _keep_ him alive. And, for the first time, he felt _very_ secure in Arthur's hands and no hesitation to wrap his arms back around the man who was _going_ to protect him. As he would protect him in return.

Arthur pushed the Death toll from his mind as he held him, unwilling to see anything but the fact that Merlin was still alive, and he would do everything in his given power to ensure that that _never_ changed. When it was up to him, he would make sure, no sorcerer would ever have to hurt like Merlin had - no _good_ sorcerer, anyhow - _When he is King_.

It may not have been in the same way, but Merlin knew - _He was loved..._ _by Arthur..._

_He would allow that certification to fill him up, because as long as Arthur cared, in the slightest, he would be happy..._

_Well, he could _try_ to convince himself of this false fact..._

* * *

_**Please review – they make me the happiest person alive! **_

_**I'm kind of hoping that people have noticed how I seem to be finding my own in this story and have declared 'The Repeat' practice**_

**_In response to one review in particular - the one about fluff, i'll really try not to, but i don't know when the next chapter will be up - i'm still recovering from trying to write this as intensely as i can... _**


	5. Chapter 5

_**Blinking Henry, this was hard. I have never been so physically worn out after writing a chapter before – I don't know if it's because it's so much longer than the others or if it's because it was just quite emotionally draining trying to write so much – that said so much – without slipping into something that betrayed the depressingness of the rest of the story. All I can say is, I will be sleeping for approximately a year after uploading it – so, I may miss my exams... I hope it's worth it – I really tried unbelievably hard with this one, hence the long time it took to upload. I really really hope you like it, and that I didn't let you down, or ruin it... or anything...**_

**_Also, i hope you don't think i've rushed into things..._**

_**Thank you for the lovely reviews, as per usual, and keep reading!**_

**_Massive thank you to Tianne who had been so amazing and helped me with this chapters direction - i couldn't have mustered the confidence otherwise (i know it sounds a bit weird, but i mean it)_**

_**Oh, there's some speech that Merlin says towards the end – it really needs to be read slowly, I couldn't quite convey on paper how slowly and quietly I need him to say it – I tried though, don't know if it came across right. **_

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Chapter Five - The Search

Merlin's hands trembled as they tried to tie the strings at the front of Arthur's tunic, his eyes keeping back the tears in the stinging, restraining way that had quickly become second nature. Vigilantly, his mind played with the memory of how Arthur's arms had felt around him the night before - and the undignified tears that he'd, _so irritatingly_, let himself cry. _If there was some way of telling him..._ He would have thought of it by now... But every time he contemplated something that was, even remotely, possible, he cast it aside as interfering with an already precarious fate. He and Arthur would never be anything more than servant and master - he just had to accept that fact, no matter how many stitches it would take to hold his heart together after reflecting on it time and time again.

Arthur watched him intently, arms plastered to his sides, cautious of how much he moved - he didn't want to accidentally touch him; Merlin was so, increasingly, astute recently. But, like some strange magnetic impulse, pulling him towards the boy whose sobs still throbbed in his ears, his hands found themselves around skinny wrists. "Merlin," he followed something inside his head - suddenly not sure where the blurred and misleading line between his place and his feelings was, and whether or not he was crossing it. _He didn't care. He hated seeing the anguish that Merlin had adopted - but he was afraid he would only make it worse._

Merlin's head had snapped up before their skin had even made contact, ever-aware of Arthur's every movement, and feeling the twinge that came with skin being _so close._ But those eyes... They only brought back the realisation that it was _Arthur_ who now forced them cruelly to this reaction. If he hadn't spoken, yesterday, in the midst of it all, and torn Merlin's thoughts from murder, then Freya would be _dead_. He had always thought that it was Arthur who made him strong, but now... he felt helpless...

"I'll do that," Arthur smiled with a heart-breaking amount of sadness - he was calm-_er_ than Merlin, his fingers would be able to tie the knot without so much effort.

"I'm sorry, sire," he backed away, pulling his wrists free, and, distressed, he pressed a hand to his forehead. Unable to respond to Arthur's attempts at breaking the profuse unease.

"It's okay," - Arthur meant that, casting his usual arrogance and princely-expectances aside for just this moment of sincerity. Using words seemed to be the only way he managed to reassure Merlin in the slightest - unaware of how their brief moment of equality, _how his touch_, the night previous, had settled Merlin's rampant nerves.

The servant slumped on his master's bed, his teeth threatening to chatter through his nervousness, and his face was nearly dripping with a cold sweat. _He was terrified_. "Do we know where we're going?" he looked up, to see a worried expression on Arthur's face that was focused _too_ intently on him,

Arthur didn't answer at first, he didn't want to admit how much he was expecting of the young boy, so soon after he'd just been through _so much_. But he saw no other choice. "I was hoping you could help,"

Merlin gulped. His fist imagining itself colliding with Arthur's lower jaw and spilling blood - aside from ire exertion, he felt no other urge to do so. His heart swelled - _this was acceptance_. "I can try,"

_Try_. The word was so untrue he felt unlawful just speaking it - but he couldn't let on that he knew _exactly_ where Nimueh would be - so trying seemed unnecessary - Arthur would question the reasons behind that... And they were details he didn't feel the need to share...

"No, I'm sorry," he backtracked, somewhat scared by the lack of objection - reading it as Merlin just trying to please him_, to do what he thought was right_ -"it's too much to ask, too soon." he fumbled with his half-cleaned boots and perched on his bed next to Merlin. A hand itched to be wrapped around those narrow shoulders, but didn't quite find the courage.

"No, I'd like to help," he said, with no hint of a smile. The lie so thick in his words, it was a wonder Arthur didn't pick up on it - he didn't want to help, he wanted _to save. _"- Lord knows, I've done enough of it up until now, so why should that change?"

Arthur shrugged. There was a very good reason why. A very good reason why Merlin should be sent back to Ealdor to continue with the _safe_, _happy_ life he deserved - not this... _This... This was riddled with death and curses, plagued by laws against the innocent, and diseased with guilt. Ruled by a king who saw only himself, and failed to feel the sentiments of others._ There was so much Merlin was expected of, and so much _more_ he felt had to fulfil as well - so many things that no one should _ever_ be burdened with.

In fact, there were _two_ very good reasons why Merlin should leave... Only the latter should never be spoken aloud.

"Arthur, yesterday," he inhaled deeply, tasting the air like a vampire tastes blood, with a thirst for living and great urgency, and "I want you to know that I don't blame you for any of it -"

"Well, you should," Arthur's itching hand finally was allowed to reach for those delicate shoulders. Speaking slowly, he took time to understand the words that formulated on his lips, even before they formulated in his mind, "and I'm sorry. I take after my father in that sense - I don't_ think_, and nothing pieces itself together in my mind." He jangled a hand around his ear and pouted slightly, as if it made it easier to explain, "You _should_ blame me for ever feeling so... _Constricted_, you _should_ blame me for the pain."

Merlin didn't smile in forgiveness, although he had never been in the situation to forgive - he had_ never blamed _- he wanted to tell Arthur it wasn't true, that the lies had never stemmed from his narrow-mind, and that things could never have been different. But he knew that that would have been two _more_ lies to add to the pile of, already, _so many_. He kept silent, hoping that it told his conflict better than any ill-phrased explanation his mouth could divulge.

"We should go," Arthur sighed, the bed rocking as he threw himself to his feet with all of the force he could muster. _He needed to wake up - from the ideal that he could have everything._

Merlin nodded quickly, sniffing and wiping his eyes, casting away those tears that had naturally been retained. _This is it_. He told himself. _This is what will change everything._

―

Fog hung thick over the hills. And Merlin resignedly smirked at how convenient it could be - an attack could be sprung upon them and they wouldn't know until it was too late.

But then, surely Nimueh would want to talk - after all, Merlin _had_ killed her once already.

Their horses rode slowly onwards, following the route that Merlin told them -_ beyond the White Mountains._

Minutes passed and he'd barely acknowledged the turning of the second, as he watched the back of Arthur's head. The way he _still_, even knowing what must be done and how unlikely it was that they should survive, had an air of pride about him. A confidence that no one could deny. _That_ made him smile, but for different reasons. They spoke so very little nowadays, like there was nothing that could be communicated through words that couldn't be communicated through a mere glance. Not that Merlin was complaining about the silence; he loved the fact he could see so much about the prince without him so much as raising an eyebrow. He felt closer. And getting to be _that_ close to Arthur Pendragon was like catching a hurtling arrow - it was rare that it was ever done.

Merlin would give so much for that silence to last forever. Because, with it, he felt the elation he'd longed for - the one that Ealdor had never given so much as the prospect of.

But then, Arthur always had to speak,

"We should find somewhere to stop for the night." Arthur leant forwards to peer into the darkness that was rapidly blanketing the light, hoping to see a place of cover on the edge of the dense forest. But he saw nothing, at least, nothing that wasn't tangled by brambles and possibly murderous to sleep next to.

Merlin sighed and demounted, patting his horse's neck as it shook out its mane.

"Merlin, don't be stupid, you'll - " Arthur fell silent as the brambles peeled themselves away under Merlin's hovering hand, separating and retreating into the forest floor around them. _He guessed this was basic tricks for Merlin._ "Oh," was all he could manage.

Merlin walked back to his horse and untied his sheets and sleeping-mat, and then went to untie Arthur's, who had jumped down from his horse and was examining the now-clear ground. Merlin smiled as he heard the prince grunt in satisfaction - _there was nothing for him to pick at _this_ time. _"Everything to your high-standards, sire?" he jibed, letting a thin sharpness bring seriousness to his words,

"I suppose," he sighed, returning to help Merlin lay down the bed sheets,

"Strange," Merlin said, purposefully prompting a question,

"What?" he instinctively replied, lending only half-an-ear,

"Since _when_ do you help me with my jobs?" he asked, pantomime-exaggerating his words,

"Well, lucky for you, Merlin, circumstances prevail," he snickered, thumping the boy on the back and returning to his horse to retrieve food supplies. "Seriously, though," he turned around to face glittering blue eyes that begged for the normality they had just tried to restore - but Arthur didn't want that. He wanted the authenticity to tear him apart, he wanted it so painful that the scars of Merlin's face crippled with pain and their trials would never leave him - and his earnest tone, inevitably, caught Merlin's attention, "this is how things are going to be from now on," he lowered his pointing hand, "you're not just my servant now, anything I can do to help you... You won't even have to ask,"

Merlin didn't hide his boyish surprise, "Blimey, sire, are you _really_ sure you know what you're getting yourself into?"

"As sure as I've ever been," Arthur'd thought he was making himself clear, getting to the core of his argument, making sure Merlin believed him... Surely...

"_See, _point proven. It won't last,"

"Are you undermining my perseverance?" Arthur snapped - intentionally letting Merlin have this one moment of routine.

"No, sire. Certainly _not_, sire."

"Good, because you would have been in the stocks for a week,"

"_And_, if your powers of _perseverance_ are as honed as you make them sound, you would have been joining me," Merlin pointed out, grinning. Relishing the return to their usual banter and seizing the distraction by the scruff of its neck.

"Yes, I suppose I would," Arthur said, that serene sadness returning to his eyes. To him, 'the stocks' was just a metaphor, an example, of what he was willing to do. He needed Merlin to know he was there... That he _wanted _to be there. Maybe mixed in with something Merlin could relate to - he snickered when he thought of the number of times Merlin had ended up in the stocks, but then he realised how many times that had been_ his fault _- he might begin to believe it, might begin to understand.

Merlin's grin had vanished. The longing hitting him full-on in the face. _He so wanted to believe what his master was saying_.

The prince carried on facing his servant, unwilling to look away just in case the messages he was trying to convey disappeared. His fingers toyed with the reins of his horse and one hand clung to the sack of food. The need to speak how he felt was vanishing with every second he held those eyes. As if Merlin was truly understanding him.

"Arthur, I -" Merlin started, unsure of where his sentence had been headed, but sure as hell that he didn't want it to go there. Not yet. Not when things we so... _Boring_.

There was no burst of interest and impatience in the prince's chest as he was denied that basic information. Instead, he found himself... Wait, what was that? That acceptance... _Respecting _Merlin's secrecy. After all, he now knew why Merlin should feel the need and instinct to keep things from him. But that itching hand was begging again. Missing its rightful place draped around Merlin's neck. He let the silence ripple the space between them, encouraging the wind to blow with coarse hisses... Maybe part of him was hoping Merlin would find the quiet unbearable - maybe he wanted Merlin to break it.

―

Merlin tossed another shred of brittle twig into the flames, shivering under the glowing heat of the fire against the bitter chill of the night. He glanced at Arthur - shivering again as he saw those eyes staring quizzically into his. _Why did he do that_? Merlin was sure he must be aware of how very often Merlin's eyes twitch and his head veers slightly to the left whenever such a gaze is met. _Surely?_ He thought it was obvious.

He shifted so his wrist was on the opposite knee and then pushed himself to his feet, taking a few involuntary steps backwards to steady himself - this made Arthur smirk.

He looked around, eyeing the forest with the utmost concern. He didn't know why, he just felt the need to assess the surroundings. That protective instinct kicking in.

"What are you doing?" Arthur asked, peering up at his servant with an expression that suggested nothing but mocking confusion,

"Hmm?" Merlin responded, not quite listening,

"What are you doing?" he repeated, _God, his servant was thick,_

"Oh, right... I'm, er, assessing the local atmospheric disturbances...?"

"Don't try to sound _clever_, Merlin, it _really _doesn't suit you," Arthur snorted and turned back to prodding the fire with a make-shift poker.

His servant hastened to walk between two trees, frowning at how quickly it became so dark. The brambles and trees and climbers so thick that only a few traces of light could seep through and scatter themselves below the undergrowth. His gut - that was pretty much _all_ Merlin was going on, pretty much all he could go on at _any_ point or situation. But so far, it hadn't let him down... Not properly. He raised a hand, letting invisible knives slice their way through the thorns, leading him along a clear and safe path. There was something about the way the trees had grown in such a way it seemed there were arches for him to walk through, and something about the way he could feel the light occasionally flicker through the leaves and dart across his cheekbones. Something that made it feel right to be walking, so blindly, through the forest, when danger was so imminent.

Then, the thought hit him...

Maybe it was just to get away from Arthur, and the barrage of incoherent noise that filled his head when he heard that voice, and the burn at the back of his head whenever he had his faced away from him, or the burn in his chest when he didn't.

It scared him... The way he could see so much clearer when he was alone. The way he saw how it was Arthur who messed with his head, and heart. And how it had been Arthur that had killed Freya, and initiated the turmoil that tomorrow would inevitably bring. Something inside him, despite his earlier defiance that he was_ not_ angry, felt the need to hate. He was scared that he would hate Arthur.

"Merlin," the voice was right behind him, right beside his ear, treating the words as though they were too delicate to speak in full-voice.

He stopped walking, turning to the direction he'd heard that spine-tingling noise, but was presented by nothing, the dark not even gracing him with the silhouette of his prince.

"Don't wander too far,"

Merlin shook his head, hearing the rustle of his own clothes, assuming that Arthur had heard the same. He didn't think he'd be able to talk - not with the strange euphoria that was collapsing his vision and thoughts and blood, that came with hearing the deep murmur of Arthur's voice, but not being able to see him. It toyed with his chest, bringing the breaths in and out with little consistency, and tightening his fists into balls, trembling under the pressure, by his thighs. And there was no way his voice would be able to un-stick itself from the inside of his throat now.

"Merlin," he said again,

But Merlin didn't answer, determined, as stupid as he might come across, that he would not _let_ himself speak.

"Walking in the forest at night won't help."

_What? _"Help what?" he practically squeaked, regretting his curiosity as soon as the distorted words left his throat,

"I know you're still unsure about me being aware of your magic, and I can _try_ to know how much it took to fight that... That _ghost_, yesterday," Arthur sighed, hearing Merlin exhale in exasperation - although, he only heard relief - "I don't want you to feel you are alone, okay?"

Merlin grimaced though the darkness, the light from the moon catching enough of Arthur's hair for a second, as the wind moved the branches above that he was able to see how close Arthur really was. He whispered in return, a slash of ire sharpening his voice enough that it would slice, "I hate you sometimes..." - and there it was. That small, and seemingly weak part of him that needed to hate, had finally attacked his lips.

There was only silence in return.

"You don't understand, Arthur. You never will." He breathed, feeling the warm gush of his own breath as it was reflected by Arthur's cheeks. He'd taken a step forwards, without thinking, closing the gap so much that he could feel Arthur's boot through his own. "If you ever understood, we wouldn't _be_ here. You'd have sacked me and I'd have been sent back to Ealdor - and no, I'm not _solely_ talking about my magic," slowness and calmness kept his temper at ease, he controlled his breathing and spoke evenly - he needed his head for this one. As little sense as he feared his words were making.

But the darkness didn't let Arthur see the tears.

"If you think that this is about _trust_, then you've got it wrong - you _know_ I trust you. This is about how hard it is for me to look at you, to talk to you and _lie_, day in and day out. Because, with you that's all I ever _can_ do. I could have been straight with you about my magic ages ago - I realise that. But with that _sort_ of trust... _There'd be so much more I'd expect myself to say..._"

Arthur had given up on four of his senses, and just let his ears indulge him. Or better, the words that they were hearing. Crying seemed the only option - but he couldn't determine whether or not he was crying with happiness or sadness. Nowadays, the two emotions were so very similar. He raised a hand and put it on the invisible boy's shoulder, silently gasping at how unbearably close it was. Now he had a grasp of the minute distance between them, he could begin to let something sink in - and he knew, he should be dwelling on the _hate_, but no, his mind was spinning in the _trust_... And the _something more_.

He realised, for the first time, and accepted it. He and Merlin were only ever going to _happen _like this. Not with the light-hearted laughter he'd imagined so many times in those dreams that flooded newly-woken eyes as they opened in the mornings. And certainly not during some accidental contact involving Arthur helping arrange the bed sheets - no matter how many times he'd pictured it that way. The tears were a necessity. The tears were what had brought this whole thing around, so it was only natural that tears should bring them even closer together.

He traced a finger along Merlin's jaw, taking time to feel how the skin attached itself to the bone, once again letting his ears control him as he heard Merlin's breath shake and the small defeatist murmur under his cold fingers, then extended it to the hollows of Merlin's cheeks, and, pressing his thumb to the high and defined bone he admired how soft the skin, he remembered as so pale, was against his. Revelling in how the contrast made him feel that they were equal.

Merlin's eyelashes fluttered, but his eyes never quite closed - he was torn between diminishing the gap before their moment was over and retracting so he could simply be alone to cry. Of _all_ the times... and it was _now_. But then, _whenever_ it had occurred, it would always have been '_now_'. The tears were beginning to stem themselves, choked by a mind that so wanted to think happy thoughts. That wanted to embrace the sudden close proximity of his and Arthur's faces, of their lips. But, as there always was, something was stopping him pulling forwards.

And something was having the same affect on Arthur.

He thought it was their past... The dealings with the ghost, the ones that were still continuing. Or perhaps the way they'd longed for it to come to this for so long, and only now it was within their reach... Maybe they wanted to savour the moment with all of the resilience they had.

Or maybe they didn't want this final closure. One kiss would cease their trials, remove the hidden meanings and bring everything to the surface - where they could feel and see it forever. Maybe they didn't want that, maybe they wanted these deep unspoken emotions to stay as they were. _But they'd waited so long_.

Bar Merlin _had_ to have Arthur.

It was passed the hoping phase, the phase where he would _think_ about what could happen - with the realism that some nights he would believe the day had one differently. _Now,_ it was like feeling the need to breathe after being strangled - for nineteen years.

There was no surprise when Arthur's hand slid around to the back of Merlin's head and laced its fingers with the russet tresses, and no surprise when Merlin's hand instinctively moved up to cup Arthur's cheek..._ and close the gap_.

Salt from their tears was no longer their only taste, like mingling sadness with the deep obsession each felt for the other. Mingling something dark with the only thing that would ever hold the prospect of eternal happiness within its hand - and offer it so willingly - and neither had the thoughts enough to consider how that 'thing' was each other.

Nothing physical broke the bliss that had come with the feel of someone's body so close to their own. And nothing physical threatened it - _Just encased it._ But the flitting emotional entities would soon imperil the thing that had brought them to this mental state. The flitting emotional entities that none could erase nor deny.

Merlin felt the layers peeling away inside him again, unveiling sheets of carefully woven power that decorated the air around them. Giving the trees a gentle glow that let Merlin see the object of his love, that made it feel real. Firelight crept and rippled along the branches and splayed on the leaves, then it leapt, tracing intricate patterns through the immediate sky. The brambles that stopped around their feet were slowly blooming, with the speed of a snail, only to tear themselves open within seconds, bursting into colour as Arthur's hand found Merlin's hip and crushed them closer together. And the leaves above them opened to let the light pour in, adding a white-blue flush to the radiating green. Beneath their feet, grass sewed them a carpet, separating their bodies from the dark, sodden, and muddied ground - temporarily raising them from the reality of tomorrow.

Not that Arthur could see this. His eyes remained tightly shut against the silver glow, concentrating on the light that was lighting in his own chest, and feeling the sensation of Merlin's lips against his own - the sensation he'd previously only dreamt of. Entwining a finger with the corner of Merlin's shirt, he skimmed the skin of his servant's stomach, delighting in the sound that told him it wasn't enough. They inhaled the scent of flowers - indecently sweet but magnifying the balance between itself and the scent of each other. Teeth clicked, as they fought for the balance to be thrown.

Encouraging the vines spiralling over their heads to come down and bind them, Merlin bit, but scowled internally as he realised the vines had done nothing - still hovering and swaying gently in the near-inexistent breeze above their heads. He pulled back to look around, his head spinning as he detached himself from the warmth, finding it hard not to resort to the gooey, girly ways he so often had to shake himself out of. He stepped backwards, moving through the swirls of warm air and through the swirls of cold air. Feeling the shiver and then the comfort - his mind was taking a similar journey.

Arthur, on the other hand, had his eyes remaining firmly shut. He was savouring every last second, even after it should have ended. But that light shining pink through his eyelids was so intriguing...

"What was that you were saying about hating me?" he whispered whilst inhaling, the character glow catching his breath a little in his throat. And he swallowed to release his exultancy - not hiding it anymore - letting it fill him up.

Merlin glanced in his direction, but did not smile. "Of course I hate you, you've given me the two hardest years of my life," he said, his tone irresistibly soft and calm, but his eyes were_ too cold_. A hostility that was brought about by an unconditional love, but fought to diminish it with all its strength.

With that he turned and left, being cautious not to catch Arthur's shoulder as he walked past. The magic dripped from the trees and dissolved in the water of the saturated earth, and the scars in Merlin's chest re-healed. The scars of magic. Not the scars of the kiss.

Arthur was left in the darkness, wondering over perfection - and how distorted it really had to be before it was _perfect_. How Merlin had given him something he'd craved but with so much bitterness, he couldn't understand. Hope was all he had left - his sanity and rational thought had evaded him as soon as he'd left that fire. Hope that Merlin had it in him to forgive.

The thing that Merlin had failed to completely recognise, up until tonight, was not the heart-ache his magic had given him nor the secrecy, but the heart-ache that Arthur had given him, the heart-ache that came with loving him.

He thought that _that_ was more important than his gift - it was the barrier that prevented him from accepting what he truly wanted, as always... it was the pain.

―

The tree shrivelled and blackened under her touch. But she did not move, instead, marvelling at how the colour was close to the colour of the sky. With a snap of soft, lean, but powerful fingers a flame sparked, and she leant in to watch them sleep. Taking no pleasure in seeing the content aura that radiated from the blond, but felt no objection to the darker, sadder vibes she received from the brunet. She was her main threat, and she would use his time of weakness.

But as Merlin had thought - she needed answers, and she needed the blood that came from those answers.

But more desperately than anything, she needed his life.

* * *

_**I'm really really hoping that last bit before the last bit seemed all right – I was worried it would come across slightly... I can't think of the word.**_

_**And the 'hate' bit – do not fear. Everything will be fine... I think...**_

_**I needed to put it in, 'cos I thought it was important to address the fact that Merlin had hurt because he loved Arthur as well as his magic... I hope you understand... because I'm having trouble myself.**_

_**Please, please, please review – I would really appreciate feedback on this chapter, in particular, because I spent so long reading and rereading it, and am still not sure of the end result. So please... **_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Expect shouting. In this story so far, this is probably the worstly (I know it's not a word) written chapter – so, I'm sorry about that. **_

_**Thank you for reviewing – as always. And an extra massive thank you to Tianne, and a really big well done to Becky if she's actually managed to read this far (if she's read this story at all). **_

_**Try to enjoy – despite the angst.**_

Chapter Six - The Findings

"Merlin?" he asked, hoping for a reply from the sleeping boy's lips.

No answer.

"Merlin?" Arthur asked again, this time with more aggression, shaking his shoulders. _If he would just open his eyes..._

A mumble - something about '_I'm not responsible - it was Nim..._'

Arthur didn't understand that last word. Well, he didn't understand anything of the sentence. The mumblings of an Idiot, he guessed, although taking strange bitter annoyance out of that word - _'Idiot_', he sighed, it didn't seem right to be calling him that now. Sure, he'd always been hopeless, in the most un-hopeless way - if that made an ounce of sense - and he'd always had an unrivalled ability to annoy the hell out of his master. But he wasn't an idiot. Not after everything he'd done for _him_, and never even spoken it, never even asked for thanks.

He was actually... quite _clever. Intelligent,_ even. He shook the 'clever' shoulders once more, smiling as he saw the eyelids flicker open, he found himself anticipating everything the boy had to say. An infectious want, that nearly overshadowed his want to be sleeping beside him.

"What?" he grumbled before covering his eyes with his palm, and wiping away the sleep. Truthfully, Merlin was having trouble remaining where he was, with no morning kiss... the proceedings of the night previous had... left an aching desire in his chest to make it happen _again_ - not the hate, just... _the other stuff_.

Arthur scoffed, looking over to the sun that was beginning to make an appearance over the shoddily-cut hills. "We need to get going." He stood up, retracting the hand that had been reluctant to leave the shoulder, letting the tingle spread through his fingertips.

"No, we don't. I can have a little bit longer,"

The prince huffed as the boy rolled over and closed his eyes again, "_No_, you're getting up _now,_" he was getting irritated, why didn't he just _do as he was asked?_

"Make me."

_'Oh, don't tempt me..._'

He shrugged and began packing away his stuff. When the ire hit him, it was like a blow to the back of the head - it hurt... really quite a lot. Forcing him to march over to the 'sleeping' body and ram his foot into its hip. He didn't know if the anger had come from being disobeyed - it seemed most probable - but the speed at which it had hit him, surely that had more to do with the fact that he wasn't _really _getting what he wanted from the boy?

Merlin had yelped. "What was that for?!"

"Regardless of what happened last night," he tried to ignore the hurt that flitted behind Merlin's eyes and could imagine the same reflected in his own, "I'm still your master, and you're still my servant. _So,"_ he elongated the word, injecting the right amount of patronisation, before expanding further, "if I say we're going _now_. Then _we're going now!"_

Merlin sat bolt upright, the blanket creasing over his hip, and a disturbingly powerful expression of outrage crossed his face. "Have you not listened, or considered anything I have said to you?!"

Arthur didn't reply, scared by how much truth Merlin had hastened to speak recently - scared that he might soon realise that he was spending undeserved (on Arthur's part) time and love.

"Have you not _quite yet_ realised that if it wasn't for _me-_" he prodded his chest, "you'd be dead?! If you weren't such a stuck-up royal Prat, you might be a little bit more thoughtful, maybe you'd even think that I deserved a decent night's sleep without you expecting me up_ before_ the crack of dawn to do some stupid jobs that probably could wait another half hour, so I could have the chance _to properly wake up_!" he screamed, noting how many emotions had distorted the prince's face, interestingly enough, culminating in a guilt.

Arthur still didn't reply,

"I don't think you have grasped that _this_..." he paused, then leapt from his 'bed', striding towards his master with an index finger raised in a way that made Arthur consider that he may have to adjust to living life as a toad, acidic distaste, anger and exasperation moving one foot in front of the other, and twisting the blue of his eyes, "this _particular_ run-in with sorcery, has a lot more to do with me than you'd like to believe?"

Red-rag to a bull, "well, how was I supposed to know anything like _that_ (whatever _that _is) if you _don't - tell - me?!" _he yelled back, suppressing the urge that clung to the back of his throat, trying to convince himself to tackle the '_that', _first - encroaching his self-defence strategy.

He'd stumped his servant. Merlin stood in silence for a moment, too enraged to noticed how small the gap between them was, before confronting his desire to be truthful, "do you want to know?" he tried to say, but all that came out was a breathy interpretation. But Arthur had been listening to his every breath - Holding on with a wretched desire that muddled between wanting to help, and wanting to put forward the principle of _how a servant should talk to his master_.

He placed a nervous hand on Merlin's shoulder. Not keeping Merlin close to _him_, but _him_ close to Merlin - he was scared of what Merlin was about to say, scared that his ears wouldn't let him listen - that they would convince his legs to make him run, as they seemed to need to do so often, from the truth. He nodded.

It was minutes before the first word left his mouth, and the first word seemed to spark more logic in the prince's mind that was originally intended, "Freya. That's the 'blue ghost's' name; at least, it used to be." The speed at which he was speaking was excruciatingly slow, and ridiculously soft. Merlin was giving off the impression that he didn't really feel the need to tell, anymore.

Arthur didn't push for more, letting the story unfold in its own time,

"She died. You killed her a few months ago," he inhaled all of the air he could cram into his lungs, finding only the smallest amount of courage, "she was the... the winged beast that killed those people, y'know, at night. Around the same time that young sorceress escaped,"

"What?" the question addressed everything _except_ who this 'Freya' was. He needed answers to everything Merlin _was not _telling him. The tell-tale tears that tinkered on the edge of Merlin's tear ducts were inviting these queries, but Arthur could only sum them up with this one word.

"You killed her, _you _are responsible for all of this, for the people dying, for her wanting _revenge_. If you'd left her..." he gulped, swallowing his doubt, for he knew_ exactly_ the degree of sorrow he was about to inflict,but he also understood the importance of it being said, "I was planning to run away with her. _That_ way - if you'd let us - then, well... I'm sure you can work out how things would be now,"

"You were going to leave with her?"

"That's what I just said, wasn't it?"

"You were going to leave with her?" he repeated, with increased anguish in his voice, raising the pitch and tearing the original softness with the claws that grew from betrayal.

"Yes!" he hissed, aware of the gravitas that was sucking his feet into the ground, as if it needed to swallow him up. He would gladly let it, if it meant the burn beneath his ribs, from seeing Arthur's eyes that full of grief, disappeared. Swallowed with him. Even replaced by emptiness would be more bearable.

"You wouldn't have been at Camelot anymore?"

"God, you're not prince for your brains, are you?" trying to laugh, his stroked the sweat from his forehead,

"Well, in that case I'm glad I did kill her." bitterness was quickly replaced by a very severe honesty, one that would have held anyone's curiosity, and one that held Merlin's heart as if by a thread with the strength of a cobweb. To the eye, nearly invisible, but if you knew it was there... "I wouldn't have coped without you. _Did you honestly think this through?_ She was just a girl, Merlin, _a girl_..." the truth slipped its rough fingers into his mouth and pressed the back of his throat in an attempt to suffocate him, trapping anything else he'd wanted to say under greasy, plagued fingers.

Merlin's expression evened as he saw the realisation,

"You..." it killed him to think it, saying it so his own ears could hear it was like kill_ing and_ being killed."You had _feelings _for her?"

Merlin laughed, finally allowing himself to take a shred of vengeance in the way the prince's face was crippling under the reality, _the pain_ - at least now he knew some of the pain Merlin knew. "You make it sound so child-like." but then his tone was loud, gritting, and very serious, "_I loved her_!" he lurched even closer before tearing himself away.

Arthur shook his head, backing away until his head collided with a tree, his mind not having the capacity to think a mere ration thought such as -_step to the left_. And far too stricken with grief to hear the past tense in his servant's words. His hand tangled itself in his hair and stuttered hurried breaths tackled the implosion of his chest with little effect. Merely spinning his head and making it hard to keep his eyes open. He slumped against the wood, not making eye contact, "so, last night, it meant _nothing_?"

"No, Arthur, it meant everything." he ran over to his side, fuelled by impulse, crouching so that he could look him dead in the eyes, "you know it did. But Freya... She _understood_,"

He thought for a moment, remembering how much Merlin had claimed he cared for him, and seeing how it fitted, so perfectly, with the shape and set of his pallid features, realising how easy it should be for him to make the younger boy apprehend how little this _'understanding_' really accounted for, _"_If she really understood you, then, why is she doing this now?"

"It's not her... it's Nimueh." No hesitation.

_Nimueh... Arthur had heard that name before... _

_'It was Nim...'_

_- But that hadn't been the first time._

"I'm guessing that Nimueh brought her back, but only the bits_ she_ wanted... Nimueh wants you dead too, Arthur," the memory of words that Gaius had spoken, about sorcery, about Uther and about Arthur's birth replayed in his head, but he felt no desire to reminisce. Then he thought of the plagues and creatures and soldiers that had sought the downfall of the King and his son as a result... This was just one more to add to the list. Merlin guessed it was intended to weaken the Prince's protector, as well as the Prince himself.

Arthur grunted, '_they always did'_. _But Merlin never let them..._

"That's not the Freya I knew,"

Arthur's mind found difficulty in focussing on the matter of his own death, especially as there was something that seemed so much more important to him. Something that would determine whether or not his heart continued beating with a much more immediate affect than the sorceress - "Do you still love her?"

Merlin looked away, too quickly for Arthur's liking, finding something to focus on in the distance, "I don't know," - _and it was the truth_

Not that Arthur had the capacity to realise that people can change, "_You are_! You thought you might as well have _me_, seeing as you can't have _her_! That's all this ever was to you!" but even _he_ didn't know whether he believed it, dismissing the reality of how well he really knew Merlin, but put it down to _not wanting to believe it_.

"That's not true!" he spun back around, and the now-standing Arthur was confronted with such remorse, "you know that's not true" he whimpered, threading both hands through his hair, closing his eyes and squeezing out another shower of salty tears,

"Merlin, I don't understand,"

He snapped, "No, I don't suppose you would. Not unless you were me. You still think it's impossible to love more than one person - _unless you're enchanted..." _waving a mocking hand

"Have you enchanted me?"

"No!" he screamed, "what do you take me for?"

"I don't know, Merlin. I - don't - know!" he retorted immediately,

"So, it's all right for you to be uncertain about whether or not you think I'm _evil_, but it's not all right for me to be uncertain over whether or not I'm still in love with Freya?!" he hiccupped, "Because, that's hardly fair."

Arthur paused, a thin wry smile slipping onto his lips, "you sound like a child,"

"So did you."

The smile vanished. But no anger or hate replaced it. No confusion, only silence. A beautiful silence that would always prevail over their endless arguing. Minutes and seconds were cracking in front of their eyes but only one thought lay in their minds - they never came to any conclusions over what the thought meant, or how it would have any bearing over their futures. But both were certain - _they would get past this_... As long as...

"Just give me some time,"

"Merlin -"

"_Just.._! Some time!" he put a hand between them, stopping Arthur as he began to walk towards him,

"We can leave now - _I think I'm awake_." Merlin bit, the sudden viciousness of his tongue sharpening his teeth. But he didn't mean the hate that Arthur convinced himself he'd heard, he just wanted Arthur to listen, _and believe what he was saying_. He just wanted Arthur to _understand_... How Freya had.

_**Thank you, thank you, thank you if you read to the bottom of this Chapter/giant explanation. **_

_**Just to forewarn you, I've started writing another AU, hence the really slow updates. So I'm sorry about that as well, but the idea just niggled at me until I wrote it down. **_

_**Please review – your opinion is more than welcome.**_

**_Yahoo! for Colin's autograph - uncontainable sense of joy - despite my previous feelings..._**


	7. Chapter 7

_**I hope this answers some questions about Arthur and Gwen, 'cos I did realise I'd completely neglected that subplot. So I'm sorry, I was just getting carried away with the Arthur/Merlin angst.**_

Chapter Seven - In Guinevere's name

Guinevere had contemplated Arthur's absence as little as she could manage - taking no pleasure when his tiring face cropped into her vision, imprinted on the inside of her eyelids whenever she closed her eyes.

She'd thought of so many reasons that this could be, but none of them, any longer, insinuated love. She had accepted that. With Lancelot, there had never been any doubt. But with Arthur... - she questioned how compact the tiny twist in her chest was, comparing it to the withering grasp on consciousness and the ten hundred beats her heart would skip at the mention of Lancelot's name. It didn't seem right to say she loved Arthur. Not when there was something so much bigger.

"Gwen?" Morgana asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes. There was something desperately wrong with her servant... dare she say it, ever since Arthur left. She'd considered Merlin, and the feelings she'd thought they'd had for each other. But now, they barely ever spoke. So, then, naturally, you turned your attention to the Prince. She'd prodded and poked at that conclusion relentlessly since she first saw the pale and empty gaze that had followed Arthur out of the castle. She kept _trying _to dismiss it. But now, evidence was so hard to prove wrong. And that gaze had never disappeared from Gwen's face. Morgana slumped at her dressing-table; the way the King's ward never should, and continued to stare at her maidservant. For an onlooker, it may be perceived that she was trying to slow Gwen's irregular breathing with nothing more than an intense glance. "Is something wrong?" she continued, "You haven't seemed yourself recently."

"Nothing's wrong, I'm fine," she hadn't hesitated in the slightest, expecting the question, formulating her answer and the meek smile that should accompany it, assuming it like it was an entirely new person. But she'd mucked that up. By her mistress' face, she guessed it had just aroused even more suspicion.

"Well, could you pass me my hairbrush, it's on my bed?"

Gwen nodded and made the first few steps to do as she was asked,

Morgana watched closely, watched how Gwen didn't really think about what she was doing, watched how it wasn't until she reached the bed that she realised that the brush wasn't in fact there,

"Um, it's not here, my lady..."

"No, I don't expect it would be, after all, you did just put it in that drawer," she pointed at the drawer Gwen had just been tidying, "_So_, are you going to tell me what's wrong? Or am I going to have to torture it out of you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't be able to tell you if you tortured me for years,"

"Well, you obviously haven't witnessed the extend of my torturing skills." she smirked, watching as the slightest bit of fear burst behind Gwen's eyes, Gwen knew when it was right to be afraid of her mistress - this was one of those times, "please, sit here. We need to talk about you and Arthur,"

―

'Kind' was the only word anyone ever seemed to use to define Gwen, and it was the only word Arthur had thought was appropriate. He'd never really considered his feelings beyond the assumption that _she was the only one_. But of course, then he'd opened his eyes. Or rather, _Merlin_ had opened his eyes for him. And as soon as the eyelids had parted, there he'd seen him - the (retrospectively) serenely happy, dark-haired, blue-eyed Merlin. And he'd never thought of her again, not in that way. Not when the tingling in his chest, when he'd seen Gwen, had transformed into the blades tampering with his consciousness, and the way his eyelids fluttered, and his breath hitched - just at the mention of Merlin's name. It all seemed so childish now.

But then. There was _now._ As in, right _now. _When they'd spent far too long arguing, when they knew how each other felt but still denied themselves the pleasure of succumbing to that. To that instinct. Gwen was a woman - therefore far more acceptable for her to be a Prince's partner. But then begged the question, if it was woman Arthur needed, why didn't he just marry Morgana? - Like his father wanted.

Surely, that was betrayal - to marry someone _just_ because it was expected of him, when he was so definitely in love with someone else.

There were no sure facts coming from Merlin but the conclusion that he had every right to hate him, all of those times he'd saved his life, and all of those times he'd had to hear him profess his undying love for Guinevere. He thought he'd destroyed any chance he'd ever have with him.

Merlin watched intently as the sun disappeared behind a cloud, glowing in a way that stung Merlin's eyes. But he kept looking, determined that he should have to suffer a little. The notion of arguing with Arthur should deserve _some_ punishment, regardless of whether or not it had been Arthur himself who administered it.

He careened his neck in an attempt to better see the castle on the horizon. The crumbling walls that had collapsed in battle and the strange smoke that rose from behind the front left turret, all just added to Merlin's initial assumption that _this was not somewhere he wanted to be_. Then he thought of Freya, and his opinion was set in stone.

He looked behind him, and to the eyes that refused to meet his own. He cursed his own self-righteousness. "Arthur?"

"What is it now, Merlin?" he spat, still avoiding eye contact - which Merlin thought was childish, even for Arthur.

"I wanted to make sure you know what you're doing," Merlin slowed his horse to a stop, but Arthur carried on riding forwards,

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to do it alone," _There_ was the eye contact, and the pleading that wasn't even in the slightest bit masked. Arthur was _begging_ him to help.

He swallowed, and paused - for longer than Arthur had wanted, but for not a long _enough_ period of time in Merlin's eyes. It was only ever the silence that could bring reassurance."You're not going to die." Was all that made sense.

"...No."

"Have you even worked out a strategy?" Merlin tapped his horses flank to start it trotting again. It was an obvious question to ask of a Prince when striding into battle, but amongst the dealings that had disturbed their hearts; he feared it had been overlooked.

"How could I possibly come up with a strategy, when I know nothing of my opponent?" he snapped, knowing full-well the conflict that he had initiated in Merlin's head,

Heat crept chubby fingers up the side of Merlin's neck, and his eyes fluttered closed for a second. _He knew everything about this woman; he knew how to defeat her, as he had done once before. And he also knew her strengths, her power, how her mind worked. And what she wanted._

"But you do, don't you Merlin?" it wasn't much of a question.

He nodded, and Arthur sighed as if he'd heard it swim and disperse the air.

"When was the last time you saw this _Nimueh?_" he emphasised her name, mocking the way it sounded as if it would lessen her in reality as well as in his mind. He kept his tone trivial, guessing that it was the best way to get a simple answer from Merlin.

"When you got bitten by the Questing Beast."

"Really..? I had thought it sooner..." he muttered the last part to himself, pondering over why it was so long ago...

"That was when I killed her." His manner was so matter-of-fact that Merlin wondered if that had been _his voice_. He was getting swept away – by the sound of _Arthur's_ voice in a conversation that didn't involve shouting was catching him off-guard.

"What?" he spun his horse around to face him, "_You _killed her?"

"Yes, otherwise Gaius would have died,"

"Gaius?"

"Yes, I bargained my life in exchange for yours, but she tried to take my mother's instead. Then, when I asked her to take mine again, Gaius rode out to _that_ castle and bargained his own. Then, to save him, I killed her,"

Arthur eyebrows were raised, but he said nothing. Scared by the complacency in Merlin's voice - this was everyday for him. He also noticed how Gwen played no part in any of this... He had thought... No, he didn't know what he'd thought. "Does my father know any of this?

"Don't you think I'd be dead if he did?"

Arthur mumbled his agreement, "Gwen? Did she know about this?"

"What, us all nearly dying?"

"Yeah,"

"That's a strange question,"

Strange really didn't cover what Merlin had all of a sudden begun to feel - no longer awash with indifference and painful numbness, his head swirled with the possibility that Arthur may not be over Gwen. _After what she'd done -_ but Arthur didn't know how he'd been abandoned.

"...I'm interested," he wasn't going to lie about that. He didn't want to have to lie about anything, but, well... He knew, _to spare Merlin (at least, he'd convince himself that's why he was doing it)_, he'd have to at some point.

Merlin hid the axe that had tried to severe his heart in half, but had gotten stuck between his ribs, as he replied, "No, she knew nothing. Will you tell me why you asked?"

Arthur shrugged it off.

"Arthur?"

The tone of his voice stopped Arthur where he was riding, spinning to listen to the next question, but his ears were trying to close themselves.

"Do you still have feelings for her? Is that why you asked?"

Arthur didn't reply - it seemed too bizarre to tell Merlin the truth that he'd never known _feelings_ properly until he'd seen Merlin - and I mean completely _seen _Merlin. "Strange, you told me I sounded like a child this morning for using that terminology," he turned and began riding again, his head held high in a masquerade of Princely majesty. But Merlin saw his agitation.

"You're avoiding the question, that doesn't make me feel good," It truthfully didn't. He squirmed as if someone was wriggling the axe and puncturing his lungs as well. Arthur had spent the best part of half an hour telling Merlin how he wasn't allowed to love anyone else, and now Arthur was effectively claiming that _he_ loved more than one person.

"Well, if I worried about what how you_ felt,_ Merlin, I'd have dirty armour, filthy stables, and I'd probably never get out of bed in the mornings," he snickered, and Merlin smiled too.

Minutes went past, and they never once looked at each other, content with watching the growing shape on the horizon. _The lake_. Merlin hadn't thought about that.

"_Mer_lin, how do you propose we get across _that_?" he jabbed a pointed hand in the direction of the expanse of water that had just revealed itself as they cantered over the crest of the hill.

Merlin dismounted, ignoring Arthur's now persistent cursing and striding forwards so he could have a better look...

"_Merlin!"_

"Just stop treating me like an idiot for _one second, please_! There's supposed to be a boat on the shore!"

"Well, I tell you what. Why don't we go a bit _closer_? Instead of trying to see from all the way up here,"

"Because, I've got a better view from up here. If we go down to the shore, and then find out it's around the side a bit, we'll have to travel further,"

Arthur was silent. Merlin had a point, as reluctant as Arthur was to admit it. Merlin always had a point - and he always knew the truth, no matter how much Arthur would try to shrug it off.

Something caught Merlin's eye roughly twenty metres out into the water, "Look, there it is," he pointed and turned to face the Prince, sporting an I-told-you-so face.

"Yes, well, we don't have all day, so I suggest you get back on your horse, ride down there, and figure a way of getting the boat back to the shore,"

Merlin muttered something under his breath and Arthur's horse reared, throwing its front legs into the air and neighing at the top of its lungs. Arthur yelped but clung on to the reigns with all the strength he could, trying not to let Merlin's smug face distract him from self-preservation.

He managed to settle it, patting the horses flank until it calmed, "And _if you dare_ do that again..."

"You'll what? Arthur, Fire me?!"

Arthur thought about the prospect... As if he could do that. He could imagine the emptiness, the quiet, and the strange smoothness that everything would run with. That wouldn't be normal. Then he imagined the regret - if he'd just let him slip through his fingers. He had to resist the urge to tackle Merlin to the ground and claim him there and then - the urge to make sure Merlin knew he couldn't fire him.

Merlin watched, hoping that his prince could speak aloud what he desperately needed to hear. But Arthur just kicked the stirrup into his horse's stomach and began his descent to the lake. He sighed. _When were things ever supposed to be this difficult_? Clearly that wasn't fair.

―

"Arthur and I?" Guinevere asked, taking the gestured seat with little hesitation - it was the words she would have trouble with.

"Yes, and don't think you can lie to me,"

"I wouldn't dream of it, my lady,"

This Morgana knew to be a lie, regarding her _own_ dream the night previous. "You miss him don't you?"

"Everyone does,"

"But you more so?"

"No, why should I?" it was all too rehearsed, she knew what she had to say, and she knew how it differed from how she was really feeling - which currently was indecipherable, some strange mix of regret, anxiety, sickness... And... And... She really _should_ be missing him, after everything... But she couldn't tell if she was, or just dreading his return. She didn't know how to tackle the memory of what she had done. _Leaving him to die_..._ And then he hadn't..._

"No, you shouldn't. That's why I'm asking."

Gwen pretended she hadn't heard the hostility in her mistress' voice, and pretended that she was innocent. That her and Arthur... Had never been anything. This lie begged the question - _Were they anything now?_ And then that begged the question - _Would they ever be anything again?_ She didn't know if she wanted them to be. "No."

"Did you ever?"

"With all due respect, My Lady, can I ask why you are asking?"

"I'm asking because I need to know; you realise Uther would have your head."

"Nothing happened!" she yelled, hoping with all she was worth that the message was being hammered into Morgana's brain. "Nothing _ever_ happened!"

"Then," she paused, "what's this..?" the dark-haired girl opened one of her dressing-table drawers, pulling out a small folded piece of parchment. She handed it to her maid,

Gwen's breath hitched - the letter Merlin had sent her - from Arthur - when they'd been muddled in the misunderstanding with Vivian. "That was a mistake." she mumbled, twisting her fingers in her lap, and bowing her head. _Why did she feel guilty? Was it so wrong to have been in love with the Prince?_ She noticed her own use of the past tense.

"Yes, Gwen! Anything that ever happened between you and Arthur was a mistake!" Morgana yelled, standing up, hesitantly placing a hand on the sitting girls shoulder. But it was clear; Morgana wasn't going to stand down. "I'm saying this _for you_, not just for Arthur."

She thought about him, the blond hair, the blue eyes, and perfectly set and angular face, and noticed the lack of _anything_ happening in her chest. "I don't love him anymore," she whimpered, the certainty in her voice should have chilled, burying her head in her hands and hiding the undignified contortions of her weeping face.

"Well, you should be thankful for that." With those final closing words, Morgana left her servant to cry alone. Determined that she should know - Morgana was being gracious. Gwen was lucky to still have her head soundly on her shoulders.

―

Merlin looked carefully over his shoulder, back to where Arthur stood waiting expectantly. "Do you have to watch?"

"Does it make a difference if I do? It's not like it's the first time you've used your magic in front of me."

"But your face, Arthur..."

"There is nothing wrong with my face!"

_'No, no there isn't,'_

"No, but if you were being expected to do something illegal by someone who looked so _disgusted_..."

"Oh, so now I'm _disgusting_ you! I don't know where I am with you anymore, things are just getting _more confusing_,and you're not making this any easier for me!" Arthur yelled in return, regularly raising his voice above Merlin's repetitive denial.

"I said - you _look _disgust-_ed_! Not - you _are _disgust-_ing!"_ he yelled, taking no pleasure in recognising just how much they were yelling at each other, "Oh, what's the point?" he mumbled, softening his voice which somehow helped to soothe the scratching where he'd been shouting, and turning his head away from Arthur once more. Raising a hand, he muttered barely audible incantations and the boat, once stranded across the silver water, stirred and began gradually cruising towards them, rippling the grey surface as it did so.

Arthur huffed, but took a seat in the small wooden rowing boat nonetheless.

"Y'know, I don't think I was ever supposed to come here with you. It was always supposed to be just me, like the last few times,"

"Come on, Merlin, now's not the time to get all Philosophical on me." He outstretched a hand from where he was sat, offering stability for Merlin to clamber in. But Merlin refused it. Determined that any decision he made, he would make by himself.

Bubbles had been literally audible in Merlin's stomach as he considered touching Arthur's skin again. He stepped to take the seat opposite his master, but a strong hand brought him crashing down onto the tiny space beside the prince. "Why can't I sit over there?"

"I need to speak to you,"

"Surely it would be easier to talk to me when you can see my face?"

"I don't want to see your face, not when I know what needs saying,"

Merlin gulped; _did he want to know what Arthur needed to say? _His lips tingling in a sensation that was brought about by the memory of their previous night. Although, he knew, and acknowledged, that what Arthur needed to tell him, was not what Merlin needed him to say. He closed his eyes, making it that little bit easier to turn his head away from the intense blue stare. "Go on."

"You wanted to know about Gwen, Yes? You wanted to know if..." it was hard just saying it, hard feeling how much pain that word, that was supposed to bring so much happiness, brought, "If I still love her?"

Merlin nodded, knowing Arthur could see out of the corner of his eye. The tone that the prince had taken on made him doubt if he _actually_ _wanted_ to know, or if it was more that he _should _know. So that he could crush his hopes before it got even less bearable - even as inconceivable as _less bearable_ seemed, because, surely it couldn't get any worse than this, could it? The gaping hole in his heart told him 'No'.

"Well, the truth is..." he took a deep breath, "... I thought I knew what it was like - to _love_ someone - but, I guess, _now_, after everything... - even after the amount of times I could tell by your eyes you would have gladly killed me there and then -"

"Woah, stop right there. _Killed you_?" he couldn't help but snigger, "I think you've been listening to your father too much,"

"Merlin, I'm trying to have a serious conversation here,"

"Sorry."

Arthur smiled, finishing his sentence in his head - _I realised that love doesn't mean anything at all if you don't have to fight for it. Without the negatives, there would be no reason for the positives - not that they'd really experienced any positives yet._ His confidence evaded him and he couldn't summon the self-belief to finish aloud. "Do you even understand what I'm trying to say?" he ruffled a hand through his hair, jolting slightly as Merlin gave the signalling word for the boat to start moving.

"No, of course I don't - it's probably due to the fact that I'm such an _'Idiot_',"

"Don't. Please Merlin. Don't make me feel..." he sighed, looking around him. The vines and branches that were tumbling into the water, the colours of the flowers that littered the unmoving surface, the sheer scale of the White Mountains surrounding them, and the crispness of the castle's shape against the fog were all lost on Arthur's eyes. There was nothing he could concentrate on other than the feeling that was overwhelming his chest, and mind, and hands, if you don't count the awareness that meant that he could feel Merlin's skin under his clothes next to him. As if it was radiating a cooling heat.

"Arthur, the thing I don't understand is - how you can tell me that it's wrong for me to have loved you _and_ Freya, but then not realise how the indecision in where you stand with Gwen is causing me the same amount of grief. So I need you to tell me straight. Do you, or do you not, still love her?"

There was silence for longer than there had been for minutes, both of them looked out across the lake but neither of them was _looking_. Arthur's mind just repeated the question he had been posed, perhaps in the hope that the answer would make itself apparent of its own free will - and when it did -"I don't."

That was all he'd needed to hear, it was all he'd needed to know, but it certainly wasn't all he'd needed. He ducked his head out of Arthur's eye-line, focusing on his hands that twisted in his lap. He swallowed again, ignoring the fact that he could see Arthur reaching for his chin beside him. Deliberately turning the other way.

"Merlin?" It was almost begging, pleading, even.

"What is it?"

"Look at me."

He did. Those eyes. Again. They were always the eyes that determined his own reaction. And now they were fighting back tears. So Merlin was fighting back tears.

Those hands finally reached his chin, after they'd stopped and stuttered numerous times, and they held his gaze where it was.

Just looking at those lips produced a blissful burning on the skin of his own lips; he could taste Arthur on his tongue just because his eyes could trace his outline.

He could simulate the feel of Arthur's skin under his own, and imagine the scent of Arthur's skin when he returned from sparing, or bathing, or when he awoke in the mornings, and he could see the contours of Arthur's face and his body etched into his minds-eye. But most of all, he could hear the thud of the heart that was pressed, under skin and cloth, against his own, and he could feel the symmetry.

The pattern they'd found their idle banter falling into - the arguing - would have lead to Merlin pushing him away and telling him something about Arthur '_never being able to understand him'_. However, this was different. The compulsion to undermine each other's pain had evaporated, and the only compulsion they now felt was to close the gap between them.

And Arthur had never been one to refuse an impulse.

Merlin thought it better this time. Now that they felt they didn't need to prove anything. This wasn't their first time, and, after their words, they were certain of everything, and no questions remained regarding how they felt. It was more natural when their lips decided it was time enough to touch. And when the hold Arthur had over Merlin's chin skimmed the skin of his neck and once again, laced its fingers with the dark hair, Merlin let himself revel in the feeling. Merlin didn't suffer the need to hold back, seizing the opportunity for his tongue to gain entrance into Arthur mouth. It was Merlin who had hurt first - so he should be the first to initiate the healing. And it truly _was_ healing. With every movement of Arthur's mouth he felt the extension of his flesh to cover another of his wounds.

When their lips parted, there was no sense of hate as there had been the time before. But strangely, no desire to make the moment continue. Enough was enough. Arthur's heart wouldn't be able to take anything more.

As the boat slowed, catching gently as it knocked against submerged rocks, Merlin smiled as he thought - he better remember to tell Gwen he and Arthur had kissed under the abuse of her name. He should love to see her face.

_**Thank you so much for reading, and reviews are very much appreciated, so, yeah, tell me what you think.**_


	8. Chapter 8

_**This will most likely be the penultimate chapter, and it's perhaps not as long as I would have liked. But I really tried to revert back to the emotions I used in Chapters 3 and 4. I really hope you like it – because it's a very important chapter. **_

_**Anyway, thank you all so much for your reviews; I really loved getting your support. **_

_**So, yeah – here's chapter eight...**_

Chapter Eight - After now, I'll wait

Arthur held out a hand, once again - a gesture to help Merlin up. Only _this_ time, his servant took it gladly, instinctively running his thumb along the knuckles and little finger - a movement Merlin did without thinking. Arthur smiled under the soft touch and heaved him out, catching him gently under the arm after he stumbled slightly.

Merlin looked around, a smile absent on his face as he remembered the last time he had been here. The last time he had witnessed the power the crumbling derelict walls held between them, and heard the words that lied to and deceived him - he'd nearly felt his own death plunge into his chest, and nearly seen the death of those he'd been so close to and so close to losing. He didn't want to see that again, or feel that grappling pain. But he knew it must be so. _Today, Freya must die_. _Again_ - but this time... Well, _only_ until the next time. It was strange, now, knowing that death was never as final as it should be, especially not for someone who held a sublime power over someone so close to Arthur. Once breathing has ceased, one spark could reinstate it, bring it back in a... in a more stuttered, paranormal way. But back, nonetheless. He pitied the body of his former love and how it had been cruelly stolen from slumber and forced into a deed - into a world that would only ever hate her - which he knew she would never have _wanted_ to commit. And now, he must destroy her for it.

"How are you feeling?" Arthur asked, walking up behind him until his body was flush against the still warlock's right side. A hand reached for Merlin's shoulder, and Arthur followed his eyes up the staircase, into the cold and empty castle - he longed for home, and the past.

"That's a stupid question." He said, forcing a small, nervous smile and turning to look at the prince, if only for a second. He hadn't expected to find the courage he found just by looking at the sadness in those eyes. He hadn't expected that one mere glance could fuel the necessary need, so the adrenaline and ache for blood came as a shock.

Eyes clouding with determination, his mind narrowing in a way that wasn't natural for the light-hearted, feathery Merlin, he walked up the stone steps.

Arthur didn't follow immediately, turning to look behind him, making sure the boat was still there - making sure they could run _when_ they needed to.

Merlin's eyes weren't bothering to look at the scene he'd seen so many times before, enthralled by the vision in red that stood, radiating pleasure, in front of him. Nimueh never ceased to surprise him. He remembered the first time he'd met Cara, and her innocent eyes, the way she looked '_pretty for a princess_'. Now she just looked evil. Now, the red cloth that clung to her body gave her harsh discerning severity, not the softness he'd seen before.

"Merlin," she said, feigning astonishment, stepping towards him, eyes widened - as if he was a long-since-seen relative. One she had missed dearly. But then she saw the blond armour-clad man stalk up the final step, "Oh, and _Arthur_. What a lovely surprise!" she laughed,

Merlin ignored how nice it sounded. Flowing, slight and gently ringing. Arthur simply nodded once - acknowledgment was all a prince needed to give a sorcerer.

"What can I do for you?" she grinned, flashing gleaming white teeth that stole the calmness of her pale and russet framed face. "Although, the answer, I fear, I may already have."

"Leave Freya alone." Arthur demanded, in a voice that seemed to come from nowhere - so detached from Merlin's head - but seizing his attention, and making his withering heart swell.

Merlin saw what Arthur was doing - and this had nothing to benefit Nimueh - he was showing Merlin that he cared, in some strange, disconnected way; he was showing Merlin that he appreciated his conflict. That he wanted her to rest as much as he did - he understood how her pain, was Merlin's pain, and he wanted to end it. He turned back to the sorceress in time to _see_ her throw her head back to laugh, as well as hear it.

"You sound so feeble. As if your _begging_ is anywhere close to being a match for my power." She paused, never once breaking Arthur's 'confident' eye contact. "You still don't see, do you?" she looked to the warlock - her main threat.

"See what?" It was an understandable reflex response, but in Merlin's ears his voice sounded as though it were not his own. Coming from some corner, almost from a different person - certainly from a different consciousness - perhaps a different branch of his own, the branch that was still able to think clearly, the branch that was still listening.

"The only way out of this is if you let her kill Arthur."

"Or by killing you," Merlin casually pointed out.

Her smile drooped, replaced by some ardent challenging, "You killed me once, Merlin, but I don't intend to let it happen again. I was weaker then, but the afterlife gives you _so much more_. You could say, I am better after what you did,"

"I would, if you weren't still breathing." He gulped, preparing his mind and fingers -rubbing them together to try to warm against the chill - for what he was about to, "I find that suffering affects a person's future more than I imagine their own death would." Merlin raised a sultry palm. Steadying his breaths he felt his ears close, part of him was waiting for a scream - whether it would be Nimueh's or his own. His lips twitched as if he were fighting a smile, yelling a combination of flicked and crafted words that flew off the edge of his dried tongue and formed no meaning in Arthur's ears. With an almighty crack that split the deafening silence, the same strike of lightning rained down from a breaking cloud. But Nimueh still stood. He gasped, the air being drawn out of his lungs - _he felt useless_.

Arthur looked on in horror... But then an idea clicked in his mind. "Merlin! Wait!" he yelled, running over to his servant and leaning to whisper in his ear, "You mentioned something about life-bargaining, yes?"

Merlin was confused, "Yes?" out of breath; he closed his eyes, hoping that this would save his energy. Hoping beyond hope, that this was a solution.

"Well, can't you do the same thing now? Bargain Nimueh's life in exchange for Freya's?"

Arthur was making sense, but there were things stopping him saying 'yes' - as he _should_ have, "But, Arthur..."

"If it's what you want, Merlin, you can bring her back - I know how much she means to you..."

"_No_. No, I can't. She wasn't ever supposed to come back, bringing her back to life now would seem wrong - and after everything that's happened." He laughed at his own weakness, hoping that Arthur would see that he really couldn't, "And, plus, I'd be too scared by the question of _which_ version of her would return."

Arthur was silent, but he didn't nod. He just wanted Merlin to be happy - and he would be happier if Freya was alive.

..._but _he_ would be happier with Merlin..._

"You wouldn't want Freya to hear that, Merlin." Nimueh called, responding to a pick-up of wind, disturbing the previous blissful stillness of the trees and water. With a raise of a hand, something rose from the stone ground. Something blue and burning... And dreadfully familiar.

Merlin sucked in several huge and hurting breaths, pulling the blinkers over his eyes, forcing his mind to see the beast only. And he screamed, shouting for Arthur to move, and he saw the suddenly-clumsy feet cross over and dive for cover. With Arthur out of the way, he could concentrate.

He remembered how the water had felt under his control, so he reinitiated that sensation, imagining the lake, imagining the cold, imagining the lake and the cold clasping sharp, metallic fingers around the fire-lit blue figure. And then he saw the shape of the magic. The walls split either side of him, rocks and stone crashed to the ground, and Arthur ducked to the ground, shielding his head from the debris. Breath shot out of his chest at an irregular pace, but his head was adamant he would watch. Walls of silver dispersed as they hit the floor, firing back into the air at a million different angles. Only to collect together again and spiral up, and up, and up around Freya, hiding her face from view.

Merlin felt the first layer peel away.

He crushed further, pulling at the lake bed, shredding his fingers through the reeds until he'd drenched enough moisture to put out a volcano. Thrumming it into the throbbing red stone where there should have been a heart.

Merlin felt the second layer peel away.

Behind the collision, Nimueh's face was distorted, confused by water droplets across his vision, but the outrage and anger was too great to mistake. So, he crushed further. Filling his mind with the memory of how he had protected the prince - the first time she'd grasped for Arthur's life - with_ his_ life; their small and insignificant banter that they shared whenever the situation got tough, or even when it was nothing; the sting that never seemed to fade on any part of his skin that Arthur had touched, the corrosion that he thought he felt on his lips; then he succumbed to the feeling that had drowned him as they'd kissed. He found strength.

Merlin felt the third layer peel away.

One whole half of him held the water in its place - the way he'd multi-task whilst doing Arthur's chores at home - and the other half focused on Nimueh. He felt his blood boil, sizzling against the re-opened scars that released his furious power. She stared at him, sensing his attention move. And she screamed into the sky, praying for her body to ebb away - praying for the old religion to take her anywhere but here. But no one answered her. She was terrified for the first time, feeling Merlin clasp the magnetism under her feet, pulling her onto the ground, forbidding her from running. Or maybe that was her fear. She saw his eyes, no longer the pale simmering gold, but raging amber, deeper than she ever remembered her own, and she wished for the ability to run. Her gross underestimation and pride would be what killed her. For she knew she was going to die. And she shrieked against it, the piercing shrill snapping the water around her, letting it spill over her head.

Nimueh had said, '_This magic would never have come about without the flames, and the punishment for it, would be flames also,'_ - but now she died of water. Now she died a death that no great sorcerer should die - she died at Merlin's hands, and not because of hate. She looked to Arthur, in her last extract of vision and saw her death reflected in his petrified eyes - she saw her death. And she saw its love.

She died at Merlin's hands, and not because of hate. _Because of love._ A love that stretched beyond the boundaries of understanding - beyond the understanding that Merlin and Freya had shared - putting any man or woman's plea for their equal, to shame. Nimueh failed to understand.

And for that one remaining moment, her heart beat - for the first time since before Igraine. Not just the basic rhythm - _but it actually beat._

Inside the forever depleting protection of his ribs, Merlin felt his core alight. He begun to realise why every part of his destiny was as it was, why Mordred had known his name, why the dragon seemed to think him something more than he had been. And it was all because _he was_. With every layer that had been torn away, he'd recognised more sense.

He was becoming the warlock the Great Dragon had always said he would be.

He felt the fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth layer peel away. Disintegrating under his desire. And he saw the pulsating destruction of this internal flesh pulsate through Nimueh's body as the water poured into her mouth. She shook. And collapsed. Bleeding into the water.

Another shriek grating the air was the last thing Merlin would hear of Freya, as she disappeared under a culminating wave. As the blue dispersed into blue, and the red of the stone in her chest extinguished, and with it, Merlin's ire and desperation. _The last thing until next time._ Because, as the tendons and skin snapped back into place, he thought

_'After now, I'll wait'_

―

"You know, that's the first time you've been awake to see me kill one of your enemies." He smiled, offering a hand to the shaking prince. Heaving him to his feet, he pulled him into a warm embrace, feeling the short sharp breaths even out, and the heat return to the cheeks that were buried into his shoulder.

He pulled back and looked at him, stroking a thin finger through Arthur's hair, and then resting it on the side of his neck. He leaned in, their noses touched and Arthur smiled, the sort of smile it is impossible not to return. He kissed him briefly, just long enough to remind himself of the taste he'd never really forgotten, and then ran off to get in the boat.

Arthur was left, again, running a trembling palm through his hair, and exhaling heavily. His mind was abuzz with how much he'd missed - all of those times Merlin had killed, and it had been somewhere close to as spectacular as this... And he had missed it; put it down to one of his clumsy, tooth-pick-esque sword swipes. He felt as though his eyes had been opened - and he knew he would never want to blink again.

_**As always, please review! Please, please, please review!**_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Last Chapter. And yes, once again, I haven't sorted anything out with Uther – he's a difficult one, because I don't think he'd ever accept the thought of Arthur/Merlin, so I tend to leave it open. Ignorance is bliss, and all that. It makes sense to me. But I know that some people might get frustrated. After finishing 'The Repeat', I'm aware that the ending wasn't particularly good, and I fear I've made the same mistakes again. I'm just not good at rounding things off. What will probably happen though is I'll end up taking down quite a few of these chapters, re-writing them, and then adding a better ending. **_

_**I guess that one of the reasons I'm uploading this without being completely happy with it is because I'm scared that I'm losing that burning desire to write that I get with most new stories. If I lose it, I won't ever go back to finish this. So, I thought I owed my wonderful reviewers more than an unfinished story. Even if the ending I've come up with is lacking in so many areas. I just hope you forgive me. Oh, and Gwen doesn't die... as easy as it would make things. Sure, the ending isn't the best, but that doesn't mean to say I've taken the easy route and made everything perfect. I'm not one for 'perfect'. I'd feel I was taking away the message I've spent chapters trying to convey, and I'm not willing to do that. Despite how soppy and 'romantic' the message is. It is a message nonetheless, and the story wouldn't be the story without it.**_

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Chapter Nine - Finding Sanctuary

"I understand I have your servant to thank for your return,"

Arthur tried to force the ecstatic smile from his lips, but it was too persistent - and, by any account, he _needed_ to smile. He _needed_ to laugh and, possibly, explode with joy. His ears detected the faint shuffle of Merlin's feet over the stone-slab flooring. Any attempt at suppressing his smile evaded him, and the beaming grin lit up the entire room, it didn't escape his father's notice. "Yes, that's correct."

"Well, would you care to tell me how?" There was a bite to his father's words that there shouldn't have been, one that brought a strength of callous that should have burnt Arthur's blood.

"It was Merlin's sword that struck the sorceress." He stated blandly, although the smile was stretching the sound, "Her beast died with her."

Merlin bowed his head and sighed - holding in the sort of laugh that said both _'It was nothing'_ and _'That's not quite how things happened_' - he raised a hand defensively, scrunching his mouth to the side, and his feet shuffled quicker.

Arthur turned to look at him, just the sight of his silky soft ebony hair made the prospect of staying so far away from him highly unlikely. _In front of the court... And his father?_ Well, that pretty much swung it. Silence would have to do. Seriously, the length of Arthur's grin was expanding beyond belief, showing off more of those crooked teeth.

Something stirred within Uther - something he hadn't ever had to think about before - Arthur looked happier thinking about his servant than he had ever looked thinking about his father.

Merlin glanced up, seeing for the first time the dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and dark-hearted girl that had left Arthur for dead a few days before. Finding no ire or thirst for revenge that he had been preparing himself for - and that wasn't to say that there weren't words that needed to be said - if anything, he was feeling a little smug. The smugness searing away at the hurt that should have taken its place.

"Very well," Uther's voice cut through Merlin's thoughts and brought his eyes back to the King and court. "He will have to be rewarded."

Although his chest swelled at the thought of recognition from the King, he didn't much like the thought of the attention that may follow it.

"I don't think that will be necessary," Arthur interjected, still facing his servant, a rather suggestive smirk tugging his lips to the side, "I will make sure he knows his worth,"

Merlin grinned back, eyes momentarily flicking back to Gwen...

He saw something then that he thought he wouldn't have. Was it..? No... _Pain_?

Well, he hadn't expected to see her _in pain_. She was watching Arthur with such... Such sadness that it nearly had the capacity to make Merlin's chest ache. And she clasped her hands in front of her stomach tight enough to turn her tanned knuckles white. Her lips were curled into her mouth and she bit them tight to stop herself talking. Her shoulders were too taught... And then... And then Morgana was watching her in, what looked like, terrible vigilance.

Merlin spoke, his eyes still captured by her, his voice quiet against the screams he was sure he could hear from her head. Screams of agony... And _regret._ "I'm sorry, sire. I wish to be excused." He said, bowing as he made a move to leave the room, smiling an understated smile in Arthur's direction. But his eyes never focused enough to see the confused expression across that face - surely he'd want to stay for his own celebration.

It was Uther who voiced these opinions though, "You won't stay? We had planned a feast for yours and Arthur's return."

Merlin was quick to pick up on the _'yours and Arthur's_', as if, all of a sudden they were anywhere near of the same importance. As if Uther actually saw him as a person. "No, I must leave, I wish to check up on the work I have missed out on," he looked up, feigning a smirk, "I would hate for too much dust to gather."

Uther smiled, and _nearly laughed_, as the servant backed from the room. "It is good to see your servant has his priorities in order,"

The court laughed with their King, everyone except Arthur, who was staring after the boy with scrutiny that would tear scores in flesh.

―

Merlin broke into a run, heading not for Gaius' chambers but for the courtyard. Where he could breathe the fresh air again, not the ruled, governed stench of the castle.

Emotions and moralities battled with hideous theories in his head, and none of them would let up until his mind ached with the weight of it all. There was Gwen, the one he'd _so_ wanted to punish, to _hate_. And she had looked regretful, she had realised what she had done wrong, and she _regretted it?_ So many things were warring with his resolution that he would always win, until it barely resembled resolution at all. It fired through his veins, powered by the energy that had filled Camelot before he left - energy for all the wrong reasons - making the distance he'd sworn he'd felt after they'd left, seem like fractions of air between his thumbs and forefinger.

He needed to have Arthur,

But without the sin of what Gwen had done,

Without the remorse she was showing,

Without the first problem... Without him being a man... Without him being a sorcerer... Without him being a servant,

Or maybe just without his love.

He sat, slumped against a cold stone wall, and let the chill ooze through his clothes and onto his already frozen skin. Frozen with some warped fear. Perhaps it had only been half an hour; perhaps it had been a few hours. Either way, he couldn't bring himself to care. Care for anything, he thought. But then he saw the girl patter out of the main doors and across the cobbles, heading for her home, he determined.

_There_ was the ire he's been searching for. Overwhelming and choking and furious, colliding with any rational thought and obliterating it. He was on his feet before he'd given the order, sprinting after her, his power absorbing the noise - the accelerating clack, which should have echoed with the darkness of a death knoll. His head was filled with only one thing. _Hate_. Hate for how he needed to hate her, hate for how she never seemed to put a foot wrong, or if she did, always showed that she knew it, showed that she felt guilt. Where was immorality when he needed it? Where was her insensitivity when he needed it? He hated her for all her goodness... Because he felt it... Threatened... Because he felt it threatened his heart's collapse. He wanted to feel the pain as revenge bit at her throat, and he wanted to see the fire enrage her eyes, because the fire was now enraging his own. He wanted her evil... Or at least unrepentant. Anything but the sweetness she always maintained. He wanted her to fall. He wanted those flames to have licked her up when they'd, days before, had the chance. Not the life she walked with now, not the unbearable ease with which she breathed.

His feet caught against one another, and his eyes became clearer. He thought he had no control over the speed and anguish with which he ran, but his body stopped when he remembered something. When he remembered the Mortaeus flower. When he remembered her relief, the kiss, when she had realised he was alive... And here he was, wishing her dead...

Now the disgust radiated back upon himself. It tortured his eyes and stuck pins in his chest, _how could he be so stupid?_ The tears weren't fought back as they fell. Fell for himself. Fell for his own selfishness. Not as his feet picked up the pace of a slow walk, still following the girl that disappeared behind a wooden door, into her own sanctuary. A sanctuary that Merlin found himself jealous of, again. He had none. She hadn't seen him, or had chosen not to, as her eyes scanned his direction when she closed the door.

He continued to stride forwards, waiting for the handle to find his hand, wiping the sticky salt tracks that stung down his face with a sweaty palm. Ran fingers through his hair, took a deep breath, suppressed the concept of murder, and opened the door. Seeing her back as she leant over one of her tables, laying down a basket. "Gwen?"

She spun around, but she didn't smile when she saw him. Her eyes were red. _She had been crying_. Instead, she chose to make as little eye contact as possible and briskly walked over to the pail of water on the other table, hastily dipping in a cloth. "Can I help?" Her voice broke ever-so-quietly as she spoke; each crack was building that frustration in Merlin's chest. Frustration that urged him to let her know. Let her know she would never have Arthur, no matter how sorry she was... But could he do it?

"How are you?"

She didn't answer,

"Gwen, I need to talk to you. And _please_, don't try to reply because there are things that need to be said. _That I need to say_,"

Still no reply as she went about her work,

"I saw what you did... And I can see that... That it's killing you."

Her head snapped around, letting Merlin see the fresh fall of tears that glistening on her cheeks,

"I can't just _forgive_ you!" He protested to the silence, "You were willing to leave him for dead! He_ would_ be dead if it wasn't for..!" He thought about it, deciding whether or not he could trust her, taking into account how angry she would be after today, how temperamental and eager for vengeance.

"Don't you think I know that?!" She _yelled_ back, but Merlin's reply was quiet, like the rain next to a waterfall.

"Yes. But you're missing the point,"

"Then what is the point?! Because, at the moment all I can see is you coming to make me feel _worse than hell_ for something I know I did! And I know it was wrong! It's not as if it's up to you anyway, Merlin!"

"It is up to me, because Arthur doesn't know!"

She stared at him in silence, before her incomprehension got the better of her, "What?" She asked, in a meek voice that merely whistled through the thickening air,

"He doesn't know, Gwen. I haven't told him."

Her eyes were wide, her lips hung open with feminine softness and every plane of her face seemed void of coarseness. Time hung loose between them for longer than the minutes that passed, rolling and fluttering as if it had years to spare. Letting the truth sink in, she blinked, her lips twitching as if trying to form the perfect shape for words, then, "Are you going to tell him?"

Breathing in, he bit back his reply, "Like you said - it's not up to me."

"But you must hate me for it,"

"Yes." The truth came so easily when he felt it this strong, when he had the opposing emotion to back it up. "And that's not going to change, regardless of how Arthur would react." He paused, "Every..." Inhaling deeply he tried to steady his wavering control; he just needed to keep calm... Or, as calm as humanly possible whilst resisting the urge to smash someone head in. "_Every_ time I think about it... I just... I can't understand... I don't know what I would have done if he'd died. And I hate you as if_ he had_. As if _you'd killed_ him."

She stared, brows furrowed, piercing eyes glaring as if the truth depended on it - and, in some respects, it did.

"No one can ever understand." He murmured, near-silence being the only way to stop himself screaming. Rage bubbling and turning in his stomach, if he could just take off the burn. "And I need you to know that. No one can ever understand how I love him."

She gasped, the revelation spinning her head - she'd never thought of _that_. "You... You _love_ him,"

"Yes, and I shouldn't feel shame. But I do... If his father found out about _us _he'd have my head."

"Does Arthur know?"

"Yes."

"How does _he_ feel?"

Merlin smiled, remembering words exchanged over the past few days that had changed his heart forever,

"Oh," was all Gwen could manage, feeling only a twang in her chest. No crippling pain that she would have thought natural.

"I just wanted to make it clear, Guinevere, that you will _never_ have him. You can spend your life chasing after Lancelot, because no one is going to stop you." He turned back to the door. A memory flourishing in his anger fuelled mind that managed to wash him in some sort of lavender flavoured liquid. One that gave him a bitter serenity. "Oh, and I meant to tell you. It was after Arthur told me he didn't love you that we... that we kissed," he hid a smirk, "...for the second time."

Gwen's face twisted in disgust. She didn't want to hear these things. "You didn't need to say that."

But Merlin was already mid-way through slamming the door.

―

Arthur was exactly where Merlin knew he would be. Staring out of his chamber window, ignoring the distant cheers and laughter from the banquet hall that seeped through the door as Merlin entered. But as the wood fit back into place in the stone arch, the room was consumed once again by a grey stony silence. He watched the back of the blonde's head, his own guilt rippling through his body, from weak knees to heavy mind. Guilt over this morning, guilt over shouting at Gwen. Guilt over his last comment, although he didn't think she deserved his penitence.

"Arthur." He said. Looking down at his hands, Arthur's stance was all too knowing. But then, the gaze that found him was so swimming in affection, admiration and concern that the anxiety flooded the air around him, anywhere but inside his own body.

"Where have you been?" Arthur question was genuine, his tone fluctuating as if he was holding back the tears,

"Unpacking, and then I checked the horses," it wasn't a complete lie; he'd just missed out the run-in the Gwen.

"It took you a whole day to do that?" Arthur smirked, but his eyes remained drizzled with trepidation. "But then, this _is_ _you, _Merlin,"

The servant nodded, smiling with his lips pressed firmly together. His breathing scattering as Arthur begun to walk towards him.

"Something strange happened, something I really didn't expect to," Arthur reached for a trembling hand from by Merlin's side and held it tight in his. Staring with incredible intensity, seizing Merlin's gaze for his own.

Merlin frowned,

"Guinevere came to see me,"

His servant visibly shook, his legs nearly caving under his body at the mention of her name and his eyes closed.

"She told me what she did, Merlin," He paused, watching for that sure recognition in Merlin's eyes. But he'd already seen it, the recognition had come at the mention of her name, "why did you never tell me?"

"How could I?" He stared with the same intensity that Arthur was staring at him, praying that he wouldn't have to go through this with him. He didn't want to fall back into the pattern of argument, false contentment, then argument. "I didn't know the extent of how you felt about her."

"_I told you_, I don't love her." No fluctuation in his face or voice, but a fluctuation in the pressure on Merlin's hands. Increasing the comfort, increasing Merlin's awareness of the soft skin on his.

"I know." Was all he had time to say, as Arthur's gentle fingers caught his breath and chapped lips covered his own. There was always a time for talking, and that time never got much said. So now, it made sense to talk as little as possible. Arthur's brain clicked out of function mode, and Merlin's was soon to follow. Letting everything fall into symmetry - that way, they could completely rely on someone else to counter each one of their doubts.

After a slip with Gwen.

After a slip with Freya.

Essentially, after before,

There would always be a pair of hands that hovered over where they lay, ready to pull them back to their feet. With every time that Merlin would swear against his pain, and every time that Arthur would bitter because of the many distrusts. It would always leave cool or hot or salted lips to bring them back to the only reality they would ever be able to relax into. The reality that came with knowing it is the only thing that can never be real.

If the King should catch one kiss, their heads would leave their shoulders. And they knew this. As far as they were concerned, they could hide. Watching, with amusement, King Uther's ignorance and oblivion until, when that inevitable day would come...

Then, they guessed, the only option - would be to drop everything and _run_.

―

_When words no longer pepper kisses that touch against your skin,_

_And emotions bitter, cursed and feared are all that you let in,_

_Turn to warmth and shadows light to uncover what you need,_

_And there'll be someone with my voice acting as your lead._

_When her guilty, breaking sound makes your legs turn weak,_

_And the thought of her surrender to your death, leaves your conscience meek._

_Your gasps for life won't go unheard as fire eats your bones,_

_I'm asking you to let _my_ hands be the ones that guide you home._

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_**Yeah, okay, so the little poem thing I wrote was a bit cheesy... but cheese never hurt anyone.**_

_**Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed; it's been so lovely to receive so much support. And any criticism is greatly appreciated, if not to be applied to this ending, but to future ones. Like 'Hunting For Witches'.**_

_**Expect a re-written one in maybe a few months **_


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